Do You Think Rogues Should Have Had A Fighter's HD / BAB?

[Ryze Kuja]

Just to pile on what I said last post, as far as damage is concerned, the Fighter has sustained damage, while the Rogue is burst damage. Over the course of a campaign, the Fighter will deal much, much more damage than a Rogue, and this is simply because of having a significantly higher accuracy. However, the Rogue excels at burst damage, and can easily/quickly stealth to, ambush, and kill/neutralize high-value targets quicker, like enemy sorcerer/wizard/casty-types.

[TxSam88]

Man, I read through all of this and it just seems to me that many don't see how to build a decent combat rogue.

Knifemaster rogue with dagger, TWF build, Haste item and any one of a number of ways to be invisible. Piranha Strike, add an element or two to your weapons, dex item. all easily obtained with WBL.

you'll have one of the highest AC's in the party, you'll probably go first in init. attacks go against flat footed, always get sneak attack damage, at around 10th level you'll be getting around 5 attacks per round, each doing roughly 3d6 + 5d8 + 10 on each hit. on par with most sword and board fighters

Pick up the rogue talents that give you flanking, against the wall, etc. so you get to do backstab way often.

Oh, and you'll still have more skills than anyone in the party.

[Totally Not Gorbacz]

TxSam88 wrote:

Man, I read through all of this and it just seems to me that many don't see how to build a decent combat rogue.

Knifemaster rogue with dagger, TWF build, Haste item and any one of a number of ways to be invisible. Piranha Strike, add an element or two to your weapons, dex item. all easily obtained with WBL.

you'll have one of the highest AC's in the party, you'll probably go first in init. attacks go against flat footed, always get sneak attack damage, at around 10th level you'll be getting around 5 attacks per round, each doing roughly 3d6 + 5d8 + 10 on each hit. on par with most sword and board fighters

Invisibility stops working after the first attack, in case you forgot.

With your crap BAB most of those 5 attacks will miss.

[Mark Hoover 330]

And to pile onto the pile that Ryze-ome has been making, the mechanics of PF1 are thus: hearing the sound of creatures walking is a DC 10 Perception check, modified by other things. Looking through the skill however as well as the rules on armor, there is NO PENALTY for the armor worn by the characters.

If the paladin in heavy armor wants to try their own Stealth check, there's an armor check penalty. However, that same character "walking" generates the same DC as an unarmored monk or spellcaster. Now obviously, the GM can make up whatever they want but in terms of common DCs handed out in the Perception skill, this is the standard guideline.

There IS a penalty for conditions that are "favorable" to the person using a Perception check. A GM could rule that a PC wearing heavy armor, clanking around in an underground dungeon could be "favorable" to a bunch of monsters waiting to ambush their prey, but this generates only a -2 to the final DC the perceiver needs to roll.

In short, rogues make decent scouts, especially if Cover is scattered around. Enemies may overhear the approach of the rest of the party, or they may not, but if the rogue can use Stealth and does well doing so, they can be in a position to DO something to the enemy before the foe has a chance to hurt the rogue's friends.

Plus, not only would a scouting rogue save their party on some resources, their activities provide the opportunity for something else: buffing before combat. Anecdotally I know that players in my games hyper-optimize their PCs so that they don't need to rely on buff spells or consumables that much, specifically for 2 reasons: 1. they don't like "wasting" time in combat on buffing one another or 2. said buffs may run out before combat is over.

With a scout in a forward position, spells like Bear's Endurance or Divine Favor (not cast as a Swift by a warpriest) and what not become viable.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

TxSam88 wrote:

Man, I read through all of this and it just seems to me that many don't see how to build a decent combat rogue.

Knifemaster rogue with dagger, TWF build, Haste item and any one of a number of ways to be invisible. Piranha Strike, add an element or two to your weapons, dex item. all easily obtained with WBL.

you'll have one of the highest AC's in the party, you'll probably go first in init. attacks go against flat footed, always get sneak attack damage, at around 10th level you'll be getting around 5 attacks per round, each doing roughly 3d6 + 5d8 + 10 on each hit. on par with most sword and board fighters

Invisibility stops working after the first attack, in case you forgot.

With your crap BAB most of those 5 attacks will miss.

L1 Two Weapon Fighting, L2 Weapon Finesse, L3 Weapon Focus: Dagger, L4 Combat Expertise, L5 Imp Dirty Trick, L6 Minor Magic, L7 Arcane Strike, L8 Major Magic (Vanish), L9 Greater Dirty Trick, L10 Against the Wall

Haste item plus 2 +1 daggers, gloves of the skilled maneuver, other defensive items; wand of Divine Favor (CL 6)

Surprise round: UMD +16 (or more); cast Divine Favor on self

From round 1 on you have a dirty trick +14 maneuver or one dagger attack at a baseline of +16. If full attacking, x3 dagger attacks at +15 each, iterative at +10. Baseline damage is 1d4+6 plus 5d8 SA (if applicable).

If you're going up against a single, brute foe that requires you and one or more PC to take down, you will likely be in a flank, giving +2 on all of your attack rolls. It is unlikely for any 3/4 BAB PC, regardless of build, to solo a single foe in one round using weapon damage, so flanking is a distinct possibility.

On the off chance you need to use your Dirty Trick maneuver instead s CMB of +14 on the maneuver is unlikely to succeed if you're going against a single foe so powerful it is presented as the only foe in the combat. If multiple weaker foes are present you MIGHT have a chance of success. If successful, the Blinded condition persists for 1d4 rounds at least and eats the opponent's Standard if they want to remove the condition.

Yet another tactic would be to use a round to Vanish as a Standard, delaying a single SA until the next round. While this isn't ideal, it drastically improves your chances of hitting and dealing any sort of significant damage.

Looking at WBL this PC is spending 4,604 GP on their weapons, 4500 on their wand and 3k on their gauntlets, along with 4k on a Dex belt +2. This leaves a budget of 45,896 GP for other items. +3 Shadow Chainshirt armor is 13k; figure another 9k for Cloak of Res +3, Ring of Prot +2 for 8k and an Amulet of Nat Armor +1 for 2k; that leaves 13,896. If the GM is following WBL and allows total wealth to exceed WBL by 104 GP to accommodate consumables being used over the course of a level, this PC could upgrade their Dex belt to +4.

This would increase their AC by 1 to a final AC of 26 along with picking up another +1 on all dagger attacks. If this PC needs to up their AC in melee, they can suffer a -3 to attacks for a 29 AC for one round through Combat Expertise.

This is all built without knowing the race of PC or their Traits. These might provide other benefits. For example if this PC was a human they could take the Traits Reactionary and Bred For War, picking up +2 on initiatives and +1 to their CMB for using the Dirty Trick maneuver. They'd also get a bonus feat at level 1; with retraining by level 10 you could take two weapon defense so that your AC while using both weapons is a 27.

This PC wouldn't do a ton of damage (I know, this is a broken record) but with a CMB +15 they've got about a 60% chance to blind CR 9 or lower creatures (figure the average is 10 HD, 3/4 BAB so CMD of +7, plus their Str and Dex which, by 10 HD should be about a 20 and 14 respectively for most melee types so another +7). Opportunities for SA are:

Round 1, if the PC beats their foe's initiatives with a +8 to their roll
Moving into a Flank (includes having opponent against a stone wall)
Delaying 1 round using Vanish; only one SA on round 2
Succeeding at the Dirty Trick (Blinded) maneuver

Any single SA delivers 31 damage; not earth shattering, but passable. If this PC manages a full attack with a flanker at hand however, x3 attacks at +16 each is maybe, what; a 60% chance of hitting, per attack, against the typical CR 10 foe? I know I'm doing the math completely wrong, but just saying that this PC in a full attack round would deal 60% of each of those attacks, plus 35% of their iterative for a DPR of 66.65 damage against the average CR 10 monster in a flank... that's not bad. Not outstanding, but not bad.

[TxSam88]

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

TxSam88 wrote:

Man, I read through all of this and it just seems to me that many don't see how to build a decent combat rogue.

Knifemaster rogue with dagger, TWF build, Haste item and any one of a number of ways to be invisible. Piranha Strike, add an element or two to your weapons, dex item. all easily obtained with WBL.

you'll have one of the highest AC's in the party, you'll probably go first in init. attacks go against flat footed, always get sneak attack damage, at around 10th level you'll be getting around 5 attacks per round, each doing roughly 3d6 + 5d8 + 10 on each hit. on par with most sword and board fighters

Invisibility stops working after the first attack, in case you forgot.

With your crap BAB most of those 5 attacks will miss.

Greater invisibility doesn't, neither does flanking. If a rogue is making attacks without either one of these in place, then he deserves to miss.

[Wonderstell]

TxSam88 wrote:

Man, I read through all of this and it just seems to me that many don't see how to build a decent combat rogue.

Knifemaster rogue with dagger, TWF build, Haste item and any one of a number of ways to be invisible. Piranha Strike, add an element or two to your weapons, dex item. all easily obtained with WBL.

No offense, but that is probably the most basic Rogue build of them all. It could only be more basic if you added the Scout archetype. I can assure you that "getting more attacks" is not a novel idea for Rogues.

You're a 10th level UnRogue that has spent 48,000/62,000 GP on some Boots of Speed and two +1 Element Element daggers. Indulge me. What Greater Invisibility option are you using?

And what do you do if the enemy is invisible? Or hovering 15 ft over the ground? Or they fling a level-appropriate will save at you?

[Nicos]

Adding element damage is not a good idea anyways, a flat +x is really really needed for accuracy.

[Mightypion]

Level appropriate will saves are indeed iffy, although clever building cant mitigate them.

Of course, "clever building" such as being a half orc with sacred tatoo and fates favored also works for any other class :).

[Mark Hoover 330]

Well, let's see: Greater Invisibility is more often than not a L4 spell; L3 for Medium or Summoner. If you can luck out and find the L3 version you could maybe have this as a potion, otherwise you're buying a very expensive wand at 21,000 GP, a Ring of Invisibility at 20,000 GP or Dust of Disappearance at 3500 GP per use (and no idea how long the durations will last per dose).

A c-rogue 10 by WBL has about 62k worth of gear. Barring the purchase of the individual doses of the Dust, either one of the items mentioned above eats up about 1/3 your entire budget for your PC's WBL.

Let's say you go with the ring. You've got invisibility when it's activated, but it acts as the spell so you use a standard, turn on the invisibility, then when you make your first attack you come out of invisibility unless you've got another standard to activate it again... fact check forum people, do I have that right?

Instead you go with the wand. In a Surprise round you could give yourself the next 7 rounds of invisibility with no issues when you attack, meaning all your attacks are +2 to hit and ignore Dex bonus. If you picked this up you wouldn't be able to afford the wand of Divine Favor or several of your AC bonuses, but I suppose the defensive bonus of being invisible a lot would outweigh those items.

So, you're still spending a Standard to buff yourself w/the wand either prior to combat or on round 1. I didn't really understand how, by level 10 you were affording x2 daggers, each with a +1 bonus and 2 different energy type damages on them, but especially now with the wand you could only afford x2 +1 daggers.

This invisible rogue would get x3 attacks at +17 each vs a foe denied their Dex bonus, and 1 iterative attack if they can afford a "haste item" alongside all their other gear. While that's not devastating DPR, it's definitely a solid strategy for multiple SA attacks per round with modest accuracy.

Compared to a human fighter (titan fighter), L10, using a greatsword:

L1 Weapon Focus Greatsword, Power Attack, L2 Furious Focus, L3 Intimidating Prowess, L4 Weapon Specialization Greatsword, L5 Improved Bull Rush, L6 Cornugun Smash, L7 Hurtful, L8 Greater Bull Rush, L9 Greater Weapon Focus: Greatsword, L10 Improved Critical

I don't know why I went bull rush; I guess b/c the rogue had dirty trick? Also, Titan Fighter gives bonuses to CMB when using your Large sized weapon. Anyway, this PC has a +2 Large sized greatsword, attack +20 before using power attack.

Power attack at this point gives -3 to hit, +9 to damage; ignore the penalty on the first attack b/c of furious focus. If he hits with an attack he's got a crit range of 16-20 on the greatsword and x2 damage, if he crits he might bull rush, and on any hit he rolls Intimidate +16 to Demoralize if his foe isn't immune.

If the foe's demoralized, Hurtful gives him another attack as a Swift. His full attack round (without Haste being cast on the party) is 1 attack at full BAB, 1 iterative, each dealing 3d6 +22 per successful hit; Swift action attack using Hurtful if the foe is demoralized.

On a potential full attack this PC is likely to hit w/their first attack, demoralizes, and has only an average chance to hit with their iterative but the swift action attack is likely to hit as well. He's also critting with a 20% chance at this point. In a round where he doesn't crit but just hits with 2 of those 3 attacks, that's still an average of 65 damage and the foe is mildly debuffed.

So... a poorly optimized DPR monster fighter and the uber-focused knife master DPR specialist rogue are on par. The fighter has slightly more accuracy and a better chance to crit, but thanks to his gear, as long as the rogue has 1 round to UMD their wand they can keep pace with the accuracy and damage of the fighter, and likely have a better chance of not getting hit back by the foe they're attacking.

[Mark Hoover 330]

What about an un-rogue switch hitter? Half-Elf rogue
L1 Point Blank Shot, Weapon Finesse, Skill Focus: Perception
L2 Weapon Focus: rapier
L3 Precise Shot; finesse weapon is rapier
L4 Emboldening Strike
L5 Rapid Shot
L6 Weapon Focus: shortbow
L7 Manyshot
L8 Minor Magic
L9 Arcane Strike
L10 Hunter's Surprise

So this PC by L10 has a shortbow +1, a rapier +1, a Dex belt +4 and boots of speed along with other defensive items. They can take a single bow shot at +16 or x4 shots at +14 in a full attack round. They also have a rapier +16/+16/+11 in a full attack. For damage, each arrow deals 1d6+4; 1d6+5 at 30' or closer. The rapier is 1d6+10.

For SA, when it comes up, they're delivering an added 5d6 damage. Knowing they were never going to multiclass, the player built this PC with the alternate race trait that gives the 1/2 elf 60' Darkvision as well as low-light vision in place of multitalented, so this rogue can see through normal darkness.

With an emphasis on Perception, this rogue makes a decent scout. 1/day they can guarantee that all their attacks on an adjacent foe are SA attacks, regardless of the situation. Between that, stealth and the occasional situational SA the hope is that this PC is getting in a Sneak Attack 1/combat.

With the loss of Uncanny Dodge/Improved Uncanny Dodge I suppose you could add Scout to this PC without any other changes. It'd be another way to lock in SA damage on all their attacks.

[Rogue Fact Checker]

TxSam88 wrote:

Man, I read through all of this and it just seems to me that many don't see how to build a decent combat rogue.

Knifemaster rogue with dagger, TWF build, Haste item and any one of a number of ways to be invisible. Piranha Strike, add an element or two to your weapons, dex item. all easily obtained with WBL.

you'll have one of the highest AC's in the party, you'll probably go first in init. attacks go against flat footed, always get sneak attack damage, at around 10th level you'll be getting around 5 attacks per round, each doing roughly 3d6 + 5d8 + 10 on each hit. on par with most sword and board fighters

Pick up the rogue talents that give you flanking, against the wall, etc. so you get to do backstab way often.

Oh, and you'll still have more skills than anyone in the party.

If I had a nickel for every time someone said "Knifemaster TWF Rogue is gud". Paraphrasing but still.

Since it apparently needs to be said again, compared to a competently built Ranger/Alchemist/Bard/Investigator, this theoretical Rogue has:
-Worse Saves
-No longer has Trapfinding
-Worse accuracy
-Worse damage(Goes hand in hand with accuracy)
-Worse at any skill any of the above actually care for since they actually get class features to make them better such as Stealth, Social Skills, Kn. Checks or just all of them because Investigator throws on rad shades
-No Spells~

For all that you get...+2 Skill Points per level. Wow! You also really won't have more skills than anyone in the party unless everyone is allergic to Rangers, Alchemists, Bards, Investigators, Inquisitors etc etc.

Old school required reading on Rogues.

The Unchained thread is shorter because all Unchained really does is help Dex Rogues not be QUITE so terrible, but still fails in all regards with survivability.

Strength Rogues are legit, no qualms there. Just not really my cup of tea or what I feel Rogues should be thematically built around as the design philosophy.

[zza ni]

the thing is, as mentioned before, if the player do find a way for his rogue to deal sneak attack with every attack (mine was a bow using sylvan trickster with saltspray ring and goz mask while using fly hex) then the GM tend to think they are OP and start ether banning their build or throwing monsters alot stronger which tend to screw up the rest of the party.

i mean how dare he full attack and get sneak on each attack!.
no1 bother checking the empowered maximizing nova casters, it's the rogue who uses his main class ability that must be nerfed!

[Wonderstell]

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Let's say you go with the ring. You've got invisibility when it's activated, but it acts as the spell so you use a standard, turn on the invisibility, then when you make your first attack you come out of invisibility unless you've got another standard to activate it again... fact check forum people, do I have that right?

Yup. Also, you don't qualify for Arcane Strike with the Minor/Major Magic Rogue Talent. SLAs don't count as real spellcasting with real caster levels (for prerequisites).

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Compared to a human fighter (titan fighter), L10, using a greatsword:

Huh. Well that's kind of a very awful fighter archetype for anything but dipping. At level 10 you're taking a -2 penalty to use a larger weapon while also missing out on Weapon Training +2. With a large greatsword you're trading -4 to attack for +1.5 dmg. And a vanilla fighter would also get one free AAT and AWT at this level.

Look. I like Rogues. I really enjoy my fat tail kobold hiding in smoke clouds. But they have a lot of weaknesses that you have to address just to be on par with a normal frontliner. The TWF Knife Master fails to address these issues and leans into the worst of them: Awful mobility and weak defenses.
And while some Rogues do perform well it shouldn't come as a surprise that a highly optimized character outperforms a mediocre one.

Many builds seem to gloss over that the character is supposed to survive until they come online. Sure, the TWF Knife Master will buy a wand of Greater Invis and take the Against the Wall talent at level 10. But until then they'll spend 9 levels wasting their full-attack on moving into a flanking position while painting a huge target on themselves. Circling Mongoose, Shatter Defenses? Same story.

[TxSam88]

Wonderstell wrote:

TxSam88 wrote:

Man, I read through all of this and it just seems to me that many don't see how to build a decent combat rogue.

Knifemaster rogue with dagger, TWF build, Haste item and any one of a number of ways to be invisible. Piranha Strike, add an element or two to your weapons, dex item. all easily obtained with WBL.

No offense, but that is probably the most basic Rogue build of them all. It could only be more basic if you added the Scout archetype. I can assure you that "getting more attacks" is not a novel idea for Rogues.

You're a 10th level UnRogue that has spent 48,000/62,000 GP on some Boots of Speed and two +1 Element Element daggers. Indulge me. What Greater Invisibility option are you using?

And what do you do if the enemy is invisible? Or hovering 15 ft over the ground? Or they fling a level-appropriate will save at you?

Basic maybe, but damage on par with other classes. Let me cover some of the issues being discussed. (I want to point out that my builds are all meant for PFS or APs, not homebrew where the GM tailors scenarios to counter the specific party.

Greater invisibility - best source is party caster. second best is wand. but invisibility is just one way to get flanking, there are at least 3-4 others that are great. the first is another party member. Then there is the rogue talent that uses a wall as a flanking partner, and another that uses an enemy as a flanking partner. Oh then there is also the surprise action you get in the surprise round. I've been playing a long time, and more often than not I can get a rogue to get sneak attack damage.

On invisible opponents, first best option is the party cleric casts invisibility purge, second best is you use glitter dust, third best is perception checks. a
thsis doeesn't seem to happen very often, so no big dela.

hovering opponents, hmm Daggers can be thrown, and there are way you can get sneak attack at range. or you can draw a bow and shoot. This is a situational issue and truly a job for the ranged party member. (when you play with the same party for weeks and weeks, you don't need to be a generalist, like you do in PFS, you be a specialist instead, which each person covering certain jobs.)

level appropriate Will saves, in 10 years of running AP's, I've seen this be an issue less than a handful of times. Most PC's are at an advantage on almost all saves (better than 50% chance of passing)

AS for buying +X vs Element, I've never had an issue to hit, especially with flanking (+2) combined with being Invisible (+2, no dex) so the extra 3.5 damage per hit the element gives is better than the +1 damage the +give, of course YMMV.

Also, 2 +1 daggers with corrosive and boots of speed is 28,600, leaving 33,000 for other stuff.

As for the lack of "Trapfinding", you can still locate and disarm traps without this. Most games I have been in actually forget you get then +1/2 level to these, but aside from that. if you put a skill point every level into Perception and Disarm (plus masterwork tools), you will pretty much never not find a trap, nor being able to disarm/unlock anything in any of the AP's, so it's pretty much a non issue.

Now, are there other classes that do more damage, or do other neat stuff, sure. I'm not saying the rogue is the greatest class out there. I'm simply stating that it can be built to be on par with other builds out there.

[Kasoh]

TxSam88 wrote:

As for the lack of "Trapfinding", you can still locate and disarm traps without this. Most games I have been in actually forget you get then +1/2 level to these, but aside from that. if you put a skill point every level into Perception and Disarm (plus masterwork tools), you will pretty much never not find a trap, nor being able to disarm/unlock anything in any of the AP's, so it's pretty much a non issue.

The biggest hurdle there is that it is the Trapfinding class feature that enables a rogue to use Disable Device on Magical traps, which are the majority of traps encountered at a certain point.

[Mark Hoover 330]

So, I feel like Eldritch Scoundrel fixes a lot of the issues with rogue. Accuracy is an issue; everything from Magic Weapon to Mage's Transformation can get you where you need to go. Lack of defenses: you can spam a cantrip that gives you +1 to all saves, and there are spells specifically designed to raise your stats tied to saving throws. There's also the obvious armor and shield spells, plus there's invisibility/greater invisibility, mirror image and so on.

Lack of damage: with Eldritch Scoundrel you get arcane spells. If you can't find a way to optimize that, even with reduced SA damage, then this might not be the game for you. There are weapon damage enhancers, touch attacks, or ranged attacks from blaster wizard type builds.

The biggest challenge to playing an Eldritch Scoundrel has to be having very few known spells and spells per day. This archetype, in my opinion, is only good if you're in a campaign with access to downtime, even if the GM is not using the optional Downtime rules. This PC would be largely dependent on scrolls, wands and potions, and they might even need to sacrifice one of their small number of feats to an Item Creation feat to supplement these resources.

The second biggest issue with this class is spellcasting itself. Unlike a magus they don't have a way to cast and attack at the same time. You're more like a low-level cleric; mathematically dependent on your spells to be an effective combatant but stuck with most of those spells being your Standard for the round.

There were three initial ways I thought about optimizing this class. First off, play a grippili with the Agile Tongue feat. While this isn't an Int based race the feat gives them delivery of Touch attacks from 10' away and the rogue talent Ninja Trick/Vanishing Trick gives this PC a swift to spend a L1 spell in order to cast Vanish. This race also gets to use a net as their racial weapon familiarity, so they could debuff any Medium or smaller enemy with Entangled as well.

Secondly, play something with a bonus feat at L1 or a half-elf, then take Skill Focus: Knowledge(Arcana) along with Eldritch Heritage for a familiar at L1; you'll want a Sage familiar. L3 you take Evolved Familiar/Skilled (Use Magic Device). There are vague rules that you can change a familiar's starting feat for whatever they qualify for, but if your GM doesn't allow that, pay the money for retraining your familiar's feat to Extra Traits.

With the familiar's traits, take Pragmatic Activator and Underlying Principles. The Sage familiar's Int will continue to increase, it uses Int for UMD checks and gains a +1 bonus to these as a class skill. With the Skilled evolution, that's another +8 to the check. By level 5 the familiar's Int is 10, it has 5 ranks, and gains a +9 bonus to the skill, so it has UMD +17 at this point. Buy wands you can both use, scrolls you can use, and have your familiar buffing you from wands before and during combat.

Lastly, play either an elf or a half-elf that gets elven weapon proficiencies. You'll want to go Unchained for this as well. My suggestion would be to focus on ranged attacks with a longbow, potentially even spending the points to get yourself a +1 Str bonus for extra damage long term. Point Blank, Precise, Weapon Focus and Rapid Shot by level 5 with +1 Comp Longbow and a starting Dex of 18, starting Str of 12 means a full attack round of +8/+8 from 30' away, each shot dealing 1d8+3.

Gravity Bow becomes a good buff to take, changing your base damage from 1d8 to 2d6 per arrow; an average 2.5 damage buff. If you'd rather be a sniper type, change Rapid Shot for Expert Sniper and plan to make 1 shot/round and make that one attack count; you'll get delayed SA damage but it will still be something.

By L8 you'll qualify for Arcane Archer: a full BAB class that gives you +5 Fort, +5 Ref and +3 Will save bonuses over 10 levels. It also features the ability to auto-add energy damage (pretty worthless) to arrows at level 1 but also Imbue Arrow, letting you cast a spell into the shot you're firing AND fire said arrow in the same round, with no penalty to the accuracy.

Take Vital Strike by L9. Fire either a volley of 2d6 base damage arrows or, as needed, load a damaging/debuffing spell into a single arrow and Vital Strike that single 4d6 arrow at an opponent, potentially while sniping and adding 2d6 SA damage as well. Wait... Vital Strike is "use the attack action" and Imbue Arrow is using a standard to cast a spell and attack at the same time; does Vital Strike work in this situation? Let me know.

[Temperans]

Vital Strike does not work with standard or full-round actions unless you have something that allows it.

Vital Strike does work with Overwatch Style so you can ready a bunch of attack actions and benefit from SA that way.

[Wonderstell]

TxSam88 wrote:

level appropriate Will saves, in 10 years of running AP's, I've seen this be an issue less than a handful of times. Most PC's are at an advantage on almost all saves (better than 50% chance of passing)

Would you believe me if I said there was a trend that characters with lower-than-average saving throws fail such saves more often? And that the Rogue has lower-than-average saving throws. And that failing saving throws has consequences.

Consequences your party will have to solve for you.

It's not just about the Rogue having awful CMD, awful Fort saves, awful Will saves, awful mobility, a tendency to walk straight into the frontlines, and a slew of circumstances where they're neutered. It's that your party members will have to babysit you. It's a team game. But the Rogue requires far more babysitting than other damage dealers. Which is evident already from level 1 when they want a flanking partner.

Speaking of.

The solutions you've proposed for the TWF Knife Master all come online late: Greater Invisibility (4th lv spell), Against the Wall (Advanced rogue talent), Unwitting Ally (Advanced rogue talent). So for about 9 levels your strategy is to move into a flanking position, if that's even possible.

TxSam88 wrote:

Now, are there other classes that do more damage, or do other neat stuff, sure. I'm not saying the rogue is the greatest class out there. I'm simply stating that it can be built to be on par with other builds out there.

Sure. But those other builds aren't reliant on their gimmick coming online multiple levels after they start their career, just to be on par. And they don't have to live with the danger of going from 100% to 20% output when their gimmick fails.

I'm not asking for "the supreme Rogue build". That's beside the point. The point is that every good combat rogue must face all of the issues of the class before they become good.

[Temperans]

Here is an interesting build, probably not the best but interesting none the less. Just something I came up with quickly in like an hour.

Feats:
1: Power Attack
3: Furious Focus
5: Onslaught
7: Weapon Focus (Greatsword)
9:
11: Improved Critical
13: Critical Focus
15: Sneaking Critical
17: Sneaking Precision
19:

Talents:
2: Offensive Defensive
4: Slow Reactions
6: Rapid Perception
8: Emboldening Strike
10: Double Debilitation
12: Cripling Strike
14: Petrifying Strike
16: Blinding Strike
18: See in Darkness

The goal is simple: roll 2d6+Power Attack+10d6 on the first hit every turn at full BAB. Likely crit to blind and deal even more sneak attack. This increases AC by +10 and Saves by +5, all while lowering the enemy's attack and AC by -8.

An alternate route is to go for full Vital Strike to deal 8d6+ Power Attack+ Sneak Attack.

[Name Violation]

Temperans wrote:

Vital Strike does not work with standard or full-round actions unless you have something that allows it.

Vital Strike does work with Overwatch Style so you can ready a bunch of attack actions and benefit from SA that way.

Overwatch style let's you ready 2 ranged attacks.

It doesn't give you 2 "attack actions", which you'd need for vital strike.

[Temperans]

Name Violation wrote:

Temperans wrote:

Vital Strike does not work with standard or full-round actions unless you have something that allows it.

Vital Strike does work with Overwatch Style so you can ready a bunch of attack actions and benefit from SA that way.

Overwatch style let's you ready 2 ranged attacks.

It doesn't give you 2 "attack actions", which you'd need for vital strike.

True there is that whole debate I had forgotten about.

I personally still say it works since readying a ranged attack only works if you are readying the attack action. But yeah its GM dependent.

[TxSam88]

Wonderstell wrote:

It's not just about the Rogue having awful CMD, awful Fort saves, awful Will saves, awful mobility, a tendency to walk straight into the frontlines, and a slew of circumstances where they're neutered. It's that your party members will have to babysit you. It's a team game. But the Rogue requires far more babysitting than other damage dealers. Which is evident already from level 1 when they want a flanking partner.

Speaking of.

The solutions you've proposed for the TWF Knife Master all come online late: Greater Invisibility (4th lv spell), Against the Wall (Advanced rogue talent), Unwitting Ally (Advanced rogue talent). So for about 9 levels your strategy is to move into a flanking position, if that's even possible.

I guess I've never felt like my rogues were babysat by the rest of the party. I had a role to fill and I did it. Just like the rest of my party. It was always my rogues job to get into flanking, not the other party members. i.e. Fighter engages the bad guy, rogue acrobats to flanking, both get a +2, everyone is happy. rogue get backstab as bonus. I've never had much of an issue at any level for a rogue to not get backstab during the majority of combat.

As for things not kicking in until 9th level, that's actually pretty early in our campaigns, we play AP's @ lvls 1-20, the early levels go fast, so the majority of our play is at levels 9 and above, so those solutions are the typical solutions. (usually hit level 9 after about 13 sessions, campaigns last around 70 sessions, so around 20% of the campaign)

As for it being their "gimmick", all classes have a gimmick, and most are worthless when their gimmick fails, that's not unique to the rogue.

[TxSam88]

Kasoh wrote:

TxSam88 wrote:

As for the lack of "Trapfinding", you can still locate and disarm traps without this. Most games I have been in actually forget you get then +1/2 level to these, but aside from that. if you put a skill point every level into Perception and Disarm (plus masterwork tools), you will pretty much never not find a trap, nor being able to disarm/unlock anything in any of the AP's, so it's pretty much a non issue.

The biggest hurdle there is that it is the Trapfinding class feature that enables a rogue to use Disable Device on Magical traps, which are the majority of traps encountered at a certain point.

Actually they are not. in the 10+ years of playing Pathfinder Adventure paths, I can count the number of Magical Traps that we have come across on pne hand so far far less than the majorty. and even when encountered, their DC is so high as to not be disarmable, even with any bonuses the rogue gets.

I mentioned in another thread how I don't even worry about magical traps, I just assume we'll set them off, take our lumps, and then move on. there are bigger fish to fry when it comes to building a good rogue.

[Lynceus]

Ok so if we don't even need Rogues to deal with traps, what's their point, then? Now the competition with them and the Bard, Inquisitor, Ranger, Vigilante, Ninja and Slayer is even WORSE.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Rogues, are, fine. They don't need to be better than any other class, and there are plenty of classes that are mathematically superior to rogues. As far as traps go, if you want to use one of the other trapfinding classes go for it.

As far as saves...

Grippili Rogue (Eldritch Scoundrel)1
Str 11 (13 -2 Racial), Dex 18 (16 +2 Racial), Con 12, Int 12, Wis 16 (14 +2 Racial), Cha 8
Traits: Life of Toil, Reactionary

At level 1 this PC has a Fort +2, Will +3, and a cantrip they can spam all day to get +1 to all saves with 1 round to pre-buff, if needed. Standard monster rules suggest that average, CR 1 foes have 2 HD and anywhere from 10-15 points worth of stats; it is rare for anything on a CR1 creature to be higher than 17.

The monster creation chart suggests that most "high" save DCs from foes abilities at CR1 will be a DC 12; I tend to view it as a range, typically between DC 10-13. The rogue, without casting their cantrip, will save against about half of all effects that might befall them.

Now... how often will this occur? For a CR 1 foe to target the rogue with an effect, said rogue would have to be either the only threat available to target or would have to appear as the GREATEST threat to the foe. If you're a giant spider or a band of mites or a kobold fear-specialist leading your raiders, and you see a humanoid frog crawling on the wall in plain clothes while a near 7' tall barbarian is charging down the hall behind them... who are you going to hit with the Cause Fear spell burnin' a hole in your pocket?

By L2, what's the first Big Six item everyone can afford? That's right... a Cloak of Resistance. L3 sees the rogue get their first +1 on both saves, and by L4 the rogue is trying to keep Invisibility around on scrolls, in a wand or just from a Vanishing Trick as often as possible.

Traps might unleash brutal effects in the form of tough saves... good thing Rogues don't have any way of dealing with THOSE! Now, the Eldritch Scoundrel would have a rough time; they lose Trapfinding so they have to detect and disable like a regular shlub. However, the rogue with a +7 Perception at level 1 and the ability to cast Summon Monster I from a scroll when they're not being forced through a brutal trap should be fine letting something else take the fall for them.

None of this is to say that a rogue would be BETTER in any way than a Bard, or Investigator or whatever at this role in their party. I'm simply saying that this class COULD pull it off, if you chose to use this class, so that means this class is not inherently broken or useless.

[Derklord]

Mightypion wrote:

Hmm, apart from trapfinding, there isnt much that a rouge can do that cannot be easily duplicated by other classes.

Not even that: Investigator, Slayer, Seeker Sorcerer, Seeker Oracle, Patient Ambusher Hunter, Trapper/Urban Ranger, Alchemical Trapper/Crypt Breaker/Trap Breaker/Vaultbreaker Alchemist, or Archivist/Archaeologist/Detective/Sandman/Seeker Bard can use Disable Device on magical traps, or anyone affected by the Aram Zey's Focus spell.

Temperans wrote:

1-2 people hyper focusing on damage, 1 person hyper focusing on spells, and 1 person hyper focusing on skill is the literal stereotypical party.

Stereotypical doesn't mean good. I consider it an outdated, terrible way of building a party that is mechanically inferior and results in bored players that're unable to contribute a big part of playtime.

Maybe your fellow players are fine sitting back watching your Rogue handling all out-of-combat challenges while their characters do nothing, while you're fine with your Rogue's contribution to combat being purely symbolic. But don't assume all players to be like that.

Temperans wrote:

I personally still say it works since readying a ranged attack only works if you are readying the attack action.

Normally. And Overwatch Style changes what you can do with ready action, adding something that you can't normally do.

Melkiador wrote:

What I'm saying is that if the rogue were good enough at skills, it wouldn't matter if they were less good at combat.

And I'm saying this is wrong. Not only are skills not enough to make a character actually good for out-of-combat challenges, the game is way to combat centric to have a class that pretty much gives up on combat.

Certain classes being unable to contribute to parts of the game (e.g. skills, other out-of-combat challenges, non-vanilla-fights) is literally the biggest issue the game has. Increasing that doesn't make the game better, it only makes it worse.

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

So, I feel like Eldritch Scoundrel fixes a lot of the issues with rogue.

Of course it does. It's a 6/9 caster. It also removes virtually any reason people play the class apart from its name, as it cuts skills, Sneak Attack, and Rogue Talents in half.

Yes, most of the complaints against Rogue don't apply to Eldritch Scoundrel. All but the "outclasses at literally everything" issue, of course, as as ES has little going for it that gives you a reason to play it over some other 6/9 caster.

Mark Hoover 330 wrote:

Rogues, are, fine. They don't need to be better than any other class

I say they do. At something, at least. As should every class.

TxSam88 wrote:

we play AP's @ lvls 1-20 the early levels go fast, so the majority of our play is at levels 9 and above, so those solutions are the typical solutions. (usually hit level 9 after about 13 sessions, campaigns last around 70 sessions, so around 20% of the campaign)[

Huh? Are there even that many APs that go from 1 to 20?

In any case, you should start with that. Because you came into this thread acting as if you had all the answers, and the rest of us were too stupid to see the solutions. And know you just admitted that your solutions only work because your games vastly differ from the norm.

Also, aren't you the guy at whose table Fighters were banned because they were too powerful with Power Attack? I don't think that's representative of the ordinary Pathfinder group...

[Lynceus]

"The Rogue doesn't need to be better."

"The Rogue doesn't need to be better than other classes."

"The Rogue can prevent lots of damage from traps and ambushes."

"The Rogue's utility is just fine if you select this archetype and build around this optional material that removes it's one offensive ability and spam magic missile."

"The Rogue's damage is just fine if you get to level 10, and build based around this specific archetype and remove it's primary utility ability."

"Who cares about traps anyways?"

"You know if we turned the Rogue into a crappy Bard with some sneak attack, that solves a lot of the problems with the class."

I can't keep up, obviously this has ceased to be a serious discussion and some people are straight up trolls at this point. Either that, or people seriously believe Rogue is one of the worst classes in the game and that's just fine we're not here to compete...

[PCScipio]

I consider the 1e Rogue to be a failed class. I've enjoyed playing a Rogue in D&D 4e and Pathfinder 2e, but I won't consider paying one in 1e.

[Temperans]

Derklord wrote:

Temperans wrote:

1-2 people hyper focusing on damage, 1 person hyper focusing on spells, and 1 person hyper focusing on skill is the literal stereotypical party.

Stereotypical doesn't mean good. I consider it an outdated, terrible way of building a party that is mechanically inferior and results in bored players that're unable to contribute a big part of playtime.

Maybe your fellow players are fine sitting back watching your Rogue handling all out-of-combat challenges while their characters do nothing, while you're fine with your Rogue's contribution to combat being purely symbolic. But don't assume all players to be like that.

Funny how you are assuming how other people at my table play. I am playing a TRPG to collaborate, there is no reason for me to hug the spot light when everyone can participate. But it sounds like that is how your games go based on comments, everyone minmaxing and the whole thing being a competition to who can do more.

Hmm, never knew that cooperating to give my allies guaranteed hits was "symbolic". I guess bard's Inspired Courage and Skald's Raging Song are useless in your games?

[Temperans]

Lynceus wrote:

"The Rogue doesn't need to be better."

"The Rogue doesn't need to be better than other classes."

"The Rogue can prevent lots of damage from traps and ambushes."

"The Rogue's utility is just fine if you select this archetype and build around this optional material that removes it's one offensive ability and spam magic missile."

"The Rogue's damage is just fine if you get to level 10, and build based around this specific archetype and remove it's primary utility ability."

"Who cares about traps anyways?"

"You know if we turned the Rogue into a crappy Bard with some sneak attack, that solves a lot of the problems with the class."

I can't keep up, obviously this has ceased to be a serious discussion and some people are straight up trolls at this point. Either that, or people seriously believe Rogue is one of the worst classes in the game and that's just fine we're not here to compete...

There are stuff that could be improved for Rogues like fixing some of the skill unlocks and adding more cool talents that synergise with Rogues more than other classes. But that has nothing to do with increasing BAB or HP as some people suggest.

The whole Phantom Thief thing was an example that I used because I am currently playing it. Not because it's the only option. Magic Missile isn't even the only option it's just the one I like the most for my character. Could very well spend all your feats and talents on combat, Phantom Thief let's you get the Combatant Trick talent multiple times.

There are so many Rogue archetypes that it's more a matter of a person picking an archetype you want and focusing on it then anything else. Most if not all of them have a cool mechanic or way to change the game. But it looks like "moar damage" really is what some people want.

Finally, literally all martial classes require a specific build to be good/optimized. Most of them have trouble using their class abilities with range and dex and need specific archetypes or items. Most are very feat starved and going for anything not combat means losing DPR. Fighter whose entire gimmick is "be good at hitting things" is often considered a horrible class because all it does is hit things. But a Rogue that can hit things and still be useful out of combat is bad?

[Lynceus]

No, not symbolic, but better. Look, consider this.

At level 1, a Rogue can flank with someone, netting him and his ally a +2 to hit and unlocking the Rogue's d6 Sneak Attack.

At level 1, a Cleric can cast Bless, and then flank with someone, netting him and his flanking partner +3 to hit, and everyone else +1 to hit.

At level 1, a Bard can use Bardic Performance and then flank with someone, netting him and his flanking partner +3 to hit and +1 to damage, and everyone else +1 to hit.

At higher levels, the Rogue can take Talents that can reduce things like natural armor, penalize an enemy's attacks, or make a target flat-footed IF they land a sneak attack. I'm not going to count possible feats because everyone can take Feats.

The Unchained Rogue even gets Debilitating Strike for free, to lower AC of targets he hits with his Sneak Attack.

But at higher levels, the Cleric gets better spells to assist the team, like Prayer (which stacks with Bless).

And the Bard's Inspire Courage improves to +2 to hit and damage (and later even higher), and he gets spells like Haste as well.

So the issue isn't that the Rogue can't contribute, it's just that other classes can contribute more, and sometimes more easily, as their class gives them tools to use at lower opportunity costs, and their buffs can be applied more easily as well; to cast Haste or Prayer only requires a standard action. To apply a Debilitating Injury, the Rogue needs to be able to Sneak Attack and then land the Sneak Attack.

And the Rogue doesn't get a better way to land that Sneak Attack that is built into his class that other classes can't also employ.

Also, there are occasional situations, such as concealment, immunity to flanking, immunity to critical hits, improved uncanny dodge, and fortification that can negate the Rogue's ability to sneak attack in the first place- these instances are far more common than effects that prevent other classes from adding their contributions.

And this is the crux of my belief that the Rogue needs help. He has to put himself in danger to assist the party, using tools that have higher opportunity costs, with no built in way to increase the odds he can employ his support tools in the first place, all while having weaker defenses than most other front line classes.

TLDR; yes the Rogue can contribute. But he takes greater risks to do so, and it is harder for him to do so, and requires more of him, than other classes that can provide better contributions.

[Lynceus]

Temperans, a sufficient level of optimization can make any class reach a certain benchmark of practicality- what we will arbitrarily call "goodness". That's the advantage of the 3.x/PF1e system.

There are options that can make you better.

However, this requires a level of system mastery, as there are MANY options that will not make you better.

Some classes get options built into their class, and better options available to them, making it easier to reach desired levels of "goodness".

The Rogue has to work much harder to achieve this "goodness" than other classes.

This should be a tradeoff- surely it's a tradeoff with the Fighter. He gets more Feats, he has more hit points, better AC, and better BAB. But he pays for this with having no skill options, which is why the Fighter is bad (outside of a few archetypes and Weapon Mastery options that came into the game very late).

But it isn't always a tradeoff. We see other classes able to perform better than the Rogue, with less effort, and less weak points that need to be covered. The Bard doesn't have to make a single attack roll to be able to provide better benefits to his party than what the Rogue can provide. He has a comparable skills package, increases the weapon damage of all his allies simultaneously, and has a spell list with some very good support spells.

Even though his defenses are comparable to the Rogue's, he is freer to focus on shoring them up, and doesn't actually need to be in melee. Plus, his ability to support the party's attacks also support his own attacks, if he chooses to make them.

Now ironically, I don't really like playing Bards, even though I see their advantages. I'd much rather play a Rogue. But when I have played a Rogue, I've found myself disappointed because I have to work harder to be "good" than my allies. Some of whom, like the Barbarian, don't even seem to need my contributions (other than maybe taking hits he otherwise would, because I'm an easier target to down, with 2/3 his hit point total).

I'll say to myself "why didn't I choose to be an Inquisitor, Slayer, or Ranger? Would I be having these problems?" It doesn't seem fair that I should have to be asking that question, the Rogue should be just as good at his job as those classes are at theirs. And yet, given equal levels of optimization, they aren't.

[Totally Not Gorbacz]

7/10 of people who play this game (play, not theorize on forums) go with just the Core Rulebook, pick some options that sound nice (Two daggers! Powerful Sneak! Toughness! Fleet!) and in doing so make a character that is miles behind somebody who did the exact same routine for a Fighter (Big sword! Power Attack! Weapon Focus!).

[Doompatrol]

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

7/10 of people who play this game (play, not theorize on forums) go with just the Core Rulebook, pick some options that sound nice (Two daggers! Powerful Sneak! Toughness! Fleet!) and in doing so make a character that is miles behind somebody who did the exact same routine for a Fighter (Big sword! Power Attack! Weapon Focus!).

You left out the people who get there advice from people who theorize which can often be the worst as they taking theory advice into actual play which isn't always a good idea.

I would never recommend things that GM's may find iffy or outright hate like the dual cursed oracle.

[Melkiador]

Why would anyone hate dual cursed oracle? It's not bad, but it's not even the most powerful oracle I can think of. I guess constantly rerolling could get annoying. Is it because it's annoying?

[Mark Hoover 330]

Wait... am I one of the trolls? I'm really not trying to be, but if that's the behavior I'm throwing into this thread I apologize!

Without any traits, archetypes, or other options outside the CRB, rogues are fine; this was my initial premise. They don't need full BAB or more HP. However, this game has expanded since that book and I fully support that the rogue is no longer AS GOOD at being a "rogue", here defined as a class that focuses on skill use, trapfinding, and dealing Precision damage to resolve combat encounters, as other options that have come along.

In response to being a weaker class than other classes, since Rogue came with the CRB and I'm guessing Paizo didn't want to remove the class, multiple options have been introduced that correct some of the challenges a rogue's build faces. Some of these options however are avail to everyone, in the form of new feats, the creation of traits, alternate race traits and so on.

Consider the feat Expert Sniper and the alternate race trait for halflings that lets them take only a -10 instead of -20 when sniping. Now ANY class where a PC might be built as a halfling sniper can do so with -0, so long as they select the right options.

Now for a rogue sniping is one method to surefire Sneak Attack at least 1/round, if you can get close enough to your enemies and find Cover or Concealment to hide in. These 2 options are a lifeline to the class, but only a bonus feature to other classes.

I've never disputed this fact, that other classes are better at "roguing" than the rogue. I'm simply saying that they were fine at their job in the Core rules, and they CAN be "fine", here defined as meeting the benchmarks laid out in the monster creation table averages, while they use skills for utility out of combat and remove all kinds of traps, with the expanded options afforded them.

Finally, story time. A player that loves playing arcane casters came to me and said they wanted to be a "detective" type, around the same time that the Investigator was released. I was starting a new homebrew game and this player didn't know about Hybrid classes, so he was debating about playing an Int/Dex based rogue that would multiclass into wizard.

As his GM and his friend I steered him away from rogue. My suggestions were Inquisitor (for a more interrogation-based detective), the Investigator (more like a forensic scientist), or even Magus - use his spells and consumables to help him be like a detective. He settled on the Investigator, though he still multiclassed into wizard (which, frankly really hurt the PC's ability to be "fine" in my opinion, but whatever).

My point is only that I recognize that rogue was ported in from 3x, where it had a pretty specific niche, and that niche got even smaller in PF1. As a result, other classes have eclipsed the rogue in their ability to be "fine" in the same function as the rogue, and thus I recommend those classes in place of the rogue.

This expansion however and my personal opinion doesn't invalidate the fact that, based on my own definition of "fine" the rogue is adequate.

Again, I'm REALLY not trying to be a troll here or anywhere on the internet. If that's the behavior I'm exhibiting, someone please let me know so I can correct myself. Thanks!

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

You're not a troll.

[Doompatrol]

Melkiador wrote:

Why would anyone hate dual cursed oracle? It's not bad, but it's not even the most powerful oracle I can think of. I guess constantly rerolling could get annoying. Is it because it's annoying?

Unless there's some cheese I'm unware of I would say it is, out of the box opponents need to save twice against spells.

It's free persistent which is already one of the best metamagics

[Totally Not Gorbacz]

Doompatrol wrote:

Totally Not Gorbacz wrote:

7/10 of people who play this game (play, not theorize on forums) go with just the Core Rulebook, pick some options that sound nice (Two daggers! Powerful Sneak! Toughness! Fleet!) and in doing so make a character that is miles behind somebody who did the exact same routine for a Fighter (Big sword! Power Attack! Weapon Focus!).

You left out the people who get there advice from people who theorize which can often be the worst as they taking theory advice into actual play which isn't always a good idea.

I would never recommend things that GM's may find iffy or outright hate like the dual cursed oracle.

That's 1/10. 1/10 is people who read one guide so they'll be playing uRogue with some decent feats/items and 1/10 is the people who come at you with goz mask/eversmoking bottle/bigger-than-Medium hornbow combo or some other thing they dug up in archives of this board.

[Melkiador]

Doompatrol wrote:

Melkiador wrote:

Why would anyone hate dual cursed oracle? It's not bad, but it's not even the most powerful oracle I can think of. I guess constantly rerolling could get annoying. Is it because it's annoying?

Unless there's some cheese I'm unware of I would say it is, out of the box opponents need to save twice against spells.

That's not bad, but it's just "advantage" against one target a round, which maths out to a relative +1 to +5 bonus depending on how likely or unlikely the result is.

Persistent Spell would affect every target of the spell and could be used against the same target multiple times in a fight, so it's not a perfect comparison.

[Melkiador]

Lynceus wrote:

I can't keep up, obviously this has ceased to be a serious discussion and some people are straight up trolls at this point. Either that, or people seriously believe Rogue is one of the worst classes in the game and that's just fine we're not here to compete...

Yeah, multiple camps of thought on this. I'm surprised there are people who think the core rogue is fine. Even the designers decided that thing was too weak, and those are the same people who had been progressively making weaker options since the APG came out.

I think the unchained rogue is "fine". It's not the most powerful option out there, but it's equivalent to other options released around the same time period, and it benefits well from the many archetypes for the rogue that were trying to compensate for the core rogue's lower power level.

[Doompatrol]

Melkiador wrote:

Doompatrol wrote:

Melkiador wrote:

Why would anyone hate dual cursed oracle? It's not bad, but it's not even the most powerful oracle I can think of. I guess constantly rerolling could get annoying. Is it because it's annoying?

Unless there's some cheese I'm unware of I would say it is, out of the box opponents need to save twice against spells.

That's not bad, but it's just "advantage" against one target a round, which maths out to a relative +1 to +5 bonus depending on how likely or unlikely the result is.

Persistent Spell would affect every target of the spell and could be used against the same target multiple times in a fight, so it's not a perfect comparison.

It's works out roughly being over +4 to your save DC, its not a perfect comparison but your you only listing the positives, persistent also requires 2 slots higher so it works out being 2 less, on weaker spells, as well as the other downsides of being metamagic.

It's a huge low cost boost and yes you can only target someone once a day, no one disputes the slumber hexes strength with that and the strength of this ability is it normally only needs to be used once. That is also only one use, it can be reserved defensively so enemy crits become rare. I would still happily take it if it was restricted to charisma modifier uses.

[Lynceus]

Mark Hoover, I'll apologize to you directly, and indirectly to anyone else. I shouldn't have referred to anyone as a troll. I simply kept coming back to this discussion and saw points being proposed that not only seemed to contradict each other, but some of the proposals for how the Rogue is "fine" blew my mind with the level of system mastery required.

My personal favorite ways to bolster a Rogue are Press to the Wall and Gang Up, but both of those do represent a significant opportunity cost, so I didn't mention them.

And then, beyond system mastery, statements that "Rogue is great because trapfinding" "Rogue is great if you trade away trapfinding" "Rogue is great if you invest everything into Sneak Attack" and "Rogue is great if you give up Sneak Attack" was rather bewildering.

On reflection, I realize what the problem is. The Rogue's identity. What the Rogue is. What we expect the Rogue to be. These things are murky and there is a disconnect between expectation and reality for many.

At least, that has been my experience, but obviously, the anecdotal experiences of others have varied.

Ultimately, this debate will remain, with people not changing on their opinions, until we can get a concrete definition of what is the Rogue supposed to be good at, and what is an acceptable level of optimization for the Rogue to "get there".

To my mind, the Rogue is one of many "skilled hero" classes, with a situational source of hefty damage that doesn't require him to use giant swords, and a grab bag of tricks that are generally inferior to what other classes can do, but in aggregate are meant to provide him with something for any situation.

Even though I have done it multiple times in this thread, it's not fair to compare his bag of tricks to magic, because magic is just better at everything. It has more options, and better options for just about anything you'd want to be doing in Pathfinder. To the point that any discussion involving magic basically boils down to "well everyone should play a spellcaster".

And not everyone wants to, or should have to do that, which is the fundamental flaw Pathfinder has.

But when we say the Rogue doesn't need better abilities, I wonder, since the Ranger is still over there with almost as many skills, and situational damage dealing ability of his own, but gets to have full BAB, d10 hit dice, two good saves, but also gets a grab bag of different abilities of his own, including bonus feats he can ignore the prerequisites for those situations when he's not able to call upon his favorite enemy. Oh and spells too (one of which actually allows him to pretend he's fighting a favored enemy!).

[Mark Hoover 330]

I agree Lynceus, I don't think this thread or any of the dozens of "rogue not good" threads is going to change people's opinions. One thing that comes out of these threads for me though is the major difference between other people's games and mine.

I review the capabilities of the PCs in my games, sure, but I also cleave pretty closely to the RAW of the game and the CR guidelines for building combat encounters. A CR 4 encounter will be 1 CR 4 creature, or 2 CR 2's, or whatever. If the party is APL 7 and I want a challenging fight, but I also know that the party is actually delivering save DCs and DPR on par with a group closer to APL 8, I'll make a CR 10 fight.

In that CR 10 fight though, I'll have a CR 8 and 2 CR 6 creatures right out of the bestiary. There'll likely be some environmental challenge, but this'll basically be mechanical; Difficult Terrain or a steep slope. Do you know how many creatures by RAW come with Fortification or have that kind of armor enchantment? Or what the percentage is of creatures immune to Precision damage versus not immune is?

I like using a lot of intelligent foes in my games. These types of foes often come in the form of humanoids, monstrous humanoids, outsiders, or the more cunning aberrations, undead or magical beasts. Multiple weaker monsters, lower in CR than the level of each individual PC, coupled with RAW stats and monster types that aren't immune to Precision damage is a recipe for success for Sneak Attack users.

I don't know, maybe I'm just being reactionary or paranoid or something.

[Temperans]

In terms of combat to skills I classify it as more or less: Fighter, then Ranger, then Rogue.

Meaning base fighter has the most direct combat boosts but fewest skills; While base rogue has the fewest direct combat but most skills. Ranger being in the middle thus ends up looking better, same for inquisitor. Not to mention they both get spells naturally, so no question about those.

[Theadalas]

I didn't had time to read the whole thread, and so it's very likely that this has been said before.

The design problem of rogue class in Pathfinder doesn't come out of D&D 3.5. To some degree it is rules bloat, but this only compounds the real issue, and the real issue being how they've literally nerfed rogue to the ground. Not only it's much easier for everyone to specialize in non class skills, and so perception, stealth and disable device are broadly available to just anyone, but also Trapfinding is not as powerful and unique as it was.

This is from 3.5:
"Trapfinding
Rogues (and only rogues) can use the Search skill to locate traps when the task has a Difficulty Class higher than 20.

Finding a nonmagical trap has a DC of at least 20, or higher if it is well hidden. Finding a magic trap has a DC of 25 + the level of the spell used to create it.

Rogues (and only rogues) can use the Disable Device skill to disarm magic traps. A magic trap generally has a DC of 25 + the level of the spell used to create it."

Just to sum this up:
I remember rogues being generally wanted in just about any party in D&D 3.5. It was also one of the most commonly multiclassed classes along with the fighter. Pathfinder took all of this away and gave subpar options in return.

Post-Tasha 5e rogue is my favorite version of this class amongst all editions of D&D and Pathfinder. It's mobile, it's easy to play, and brings a lot of value to the group for how easy it is to build one. This doesn't mean PF1 rogue cannot be an asset, but it takes a lot more effort to create one.

[Melkiador]

Part of the problem is that rogue was considered good in 3.5. So when the classes were getting new and better class abilities, the rogue wasn’t considered as much. But ultimately the new class abilities of other classes overshadowed what the rogue was best at. The rogue’s extra skill points were nothing compared to the bard and its versatile performance.

And sneak attack dice were long over valued due to bad math by the designers as seen with deadly sneak.