I've heard in a number of places that rogues that can do quite a lot of damage. As much or more as many martials. However, every rogue I've seen in play has not lived up to that reputation, usually lagging far behind in the combat department.
So what are some good combat rogue builds? Have I been mislead? What's out there?
I GMed a staff acrobat ruffian rogue. Getting sneak attack on a D8 weapon with a full attribute bonus to damage is pretty strong.
Ancestry Human (any heritage)
Racket: Thief
8/18/16/12/12/8 (int/cha interchangeable)
Ancestry feats
unconventional weaponry (reach, finesse)
Class feats
1 any
2 any
4 dread striker
6 gang up
8 opportune backstab
10 precise debilitations
12 preparation
14 defensive roll or leave an opening
16 any
18 any
20 any
This typical rogue shell has one major assumption: the party has a bard using dirge of doom. With this one condition satisfied, Dread Striker turns sneak attack from a conditional ability requiring positioning or setup into an almost always-on passive damage amp. Gang Up covers the enemies immune to dirge. Opportune Backstab is your martial reaction. It is trivial to trigger. Precise Debilitations adds more damage. Preparation turns your 3rd action into a second opportune backstab. Defensive Roll is a no-cost potential life saver while Leave An Opening makes your crits proc AoO which then procs opportune backstab.
Elven Branched Spear is a d6, elf, reach, finesse and deadly d8 weapon. Suits our purposes until something better comes out. Thief makes us SAD which gives us 16 con early or 14 con and 14 int/wis/cha for archetyping purposes. We only have 1 open feat for archetyping until level 14-16 so something extremely frontloaded like Psychic is ideal for this.
Gameplan is obvious. Move in, Dread Striker or Gang Up and land sneak attacks and then land some more when your Fighter ally strikes.
Thief Rogues + Secondary Agile weapon + Opportune Backstab + Precise Debilitation/Bloody Debilitations + Poison Weapon can do a good amount of damage. You can also combine with monk dedication to add Stumbling Swing Instace to improve the damage dice and traits without sacrifice the Precise Debilitation and can Flurry of Blows that can help the rogue action economy a lot.
GangUp should enable almost permanent flatfooted. A mount works very well. You do want two melee allies if possible to maximise your chance of triggering your reactions.
With reach you are pretty safe. You can easily get 3 no MAP penalty attacks every round with all the extra damage from rogue, buffed by Precise Debilitations, at fighter level accuracy. Round after round after round. You still have another action to move or attack with MAP. Your main problem is immunity to precision damage which is too common, and your enemies dying too fast.
Flurry of Blows can help from level 10 if you have a good unarmed attack.
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Our Age of Ashes party had a monk, fighter and rogue. With two other frontliners to work with, Gang Up made flanking trivial. Either you win initiative and your allies don't and you can surprise attack, or you don't win initiative and you can gang up with your friends. (If need be, by delaying until after them. You've already lost initiative anyway.)
Opportune Backstab can also happen more frequently than attack of opportunity.
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In other words, as long as you can regularly land your Sneak Attack and get a good Reaction that also lands a Sneak Attack then you're doing fine.
I'd say the harder part is surviving with modest AC and h.p. up in the front, something that Gang Up helps with since you can stay adjacent to allies, but Rogues have other cool defensive abilities too, i.e. Mobility to avoid AoOs. If paired with a Champion, a trip or shield Fighter, or maybe a Monk that circles around for you, you're likely going to be safe or able to retreat when not. If working with skirmishers...life gets a lot harder, though you can be a good skirmisher too if you know that's the situation.
As mentioned above, there is an issue with enemies being immune to Precision damage with oozes & incorporeal being among them so have plans for then. Hopefully your party doesn't rely too much on Precision damage in those cases.
Also as noted Preparation is a Flourish so balance that against Flurry of Blows or other Flourish feats.
Also
Leave an Opening: if the AoO triggers your Reaction, you'll get MAP when it's likely you'd get a non-MAP swing instead if you waited for their turn (though giving them the AoO remains worthwhile).
Stumbling Swing: Doesn't get a Thief's Dex damage since it's not a weapon, but works fine on a different Rogue.
Int: Avoid unless taking Int skills.
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I've heard in a number of places that rogues that can do quite a lot of damage. As much or more as many martials. However, every rogue I've seen in play has not lived up to that reputation, usually lagging far behind in the combat department.
So what are some good combat rogue builds? Have I been mislead? What's out there?
Having played a Halfling Thief through AoA, I'd say:
1) Don't kite: Attempts to 'hit and run' really cut into the damage you deal since Opportune Backstab is a big part of that (This may not be viable if you don't have a strong healer).2) Have at least 2 other melee characters in your party to make flanking easier: While you can flank with just one, there are times when you need to 'spread out' a bit and your ally won't be able to threaten your target.
3) Allies with reach weapons makes Gang Up flanking even easier to use.
4) If you plan on using Invisiblity (like via the greater cloak of elvenkind), consider investing in Deception as you level so you qualify for the Blank Slate feat at 16th.
Gesalt's post otherwise covers the basics (I prefer a 18 Dex / 14 Con / 16 Wis Halfling build using a shortsword and Dread Striker is very group composition dependent): On average, your effective weapon die is 2d6 (you get another Sneak Attack die about the same time you get an damage rune upgrade), your 'easy' flanking penalty to your target's AC means you hit about as often as a Fighter, and Opportune Backstab is a great reaction that doesn't depend on your foe doing something to trigger it.
Stumbling Swing: Doesn't get a Thief's Dex damage since it's not a weapon, but works fine on a different Rogue.
You are right. For some reason I ignored this. So ignore my rogue monk build too (kkk). Just focus in preparation as pointed by HumbleGamer that's better.
Yet if you still want to do a unarmed rogue Stumbling Stance still a interesting option because even without adding dex bonus to damage, the greater dice size and Backstabber trait "equalize" the damage efficiency.
About precision damage restriction. It's a rare to players face creatures with precision immunity. This usually just happen when face an ooze, incorporeal creature or an object (or something with an object immunities like mostly hazards). Precision is way more efficient in PF2 than it was in PF1/3.5. There's no more about almost non-humanoid creatures being immune to your sneak attacks.
Sounds like Gang Up is where we went wrong. I don't recall anyone ever taking it. (Though in half the cases, we weren't high enough level yet.)
Even had one player who would go whole levels without making a single sneak attack. Instead they focused on ranged crossbow attacks and basic save cantrips.
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Gang Up is good but if I play as a rogue I will priorize flank even with it (maybe using mobility to help the positioning) due this also helps the other party member to hit (Gang Up is too much selfish thing I a only party strategy, is more useful in situation where you are really unable to flank or if your party members is already flanking with other party member).
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I just want to reiterate that any build could look terrible if it is not built to synergize with the party. Gang up is useless if you are the only martial or only melee character in your party.
Rogues that want to do ranged instead of melee can work and do decent damage too, but they either need party members that can make enemies flat footed to all their attacks (like knocking people prone) or they might want to consider picking up a fire arm and playing like a sniper gunslinger, hiding often, then taking a shot, then hiding again. The gunslinger MC works for this or the sniping duo can open up interesting options for a stealthy team.
Or you could go the pistol phenom route as a scoundrel and get to benefit from feinting at range, And do more of the dread striker, intimidation stuff.
A rogue that can end a turn hiding has a lot of survivability. But if the party has a champion, then the benefits of stealth eat into other party member's thing.
I think the gang up route may just be so popular because champions are so popular and a rogue that stabs a lot for decent damage is an excellent partner for a champion, as the rogue will draw tons of attacks once enemies see how much damage they can do. It is effective, but it is not the only way.
Rogues do low damage, their sneak attack only makes their usual d6 weapon do like d12s.
What makes them able to do a lot of damage is actually the Backstab feat, specially when combined with preparation and even then you need a martial ally that likes to Strike often and accurate like Ranger or Fighter to trigger your backstabs.
At higher level, have a flurry ranger and thief as martials in a party. Use shared prey for lots of low MAP thief attacks.
@Kyrone: Opportune backstab does as much damage as the normal sneak attacks. And those added d6 really count.
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Sounds like Gang Up is where we went wrong. I don't recall anyone ever taking it. (Though in half the cases, we weren't high enough level yet.)
Even had one player who would go whole levels without making a single sneak attack. Instead they focused on ranged crossbow attacks and basic save cantrips.
Melee Thieves are strong from 6th level on (just don't ever stop to think how many level 6+ class feats you want but can't fit into your build, because there will be a lot): Before that, they are 'not great, not horrible' in combat.
Non-Melee rogues (archers, casters) tend to be significantly less strong: I think they can work okay, but it takes a lot more effort to pull off (typically magical buffs or teammates specifically setting up your attacks).
...or they might want to consider picking up a fire arm and playing like a sniper gunslinger, hiding often, then taking a shot, then hiding again. The gunslinger MC works for this or the sniping duo can open up interesting options for a stealthy team.
Or you could go the pistol phenom route as a scoundrel and get to benefit from feinting at range, And do more of the dread striker, intimidation stuff.
Thanks, Unicore. I don't expect guns will get very far in our group though. Half the players are rather jaded about guns because of how overpowered gunslingers were in First Edition and the other half of the players are equally jaded because the Second Edition gunslingers don't seem to have a fraction of their former power.
Retraining is king when it comes down to a rogue \o
Could you please elaborate? Why is retraining king in regards to rogues?
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For a ranged rogue getting Dread Striker is key in my experience, some parties are very good at applying frightened and if you have a Dirge of Doom bard even better.
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Here's my "Reaching Ruffian" build using the Free Archetype rules. The Ruffian gets training in Medium Armour and can take STR as primary stat. Can also use Sneak Attack with any simple weapon, so take a Longspear (1d8, Reach) and make the most of that reach.
Fighter* and Mauler** feats add some nice extras :)
1: Nimble Dodge
2: Mobility // Fighter Dedication*
4: Combat Assessment* // Opportunist (AOO)*
6: Gang Up // Brutish Shove*
8: Opportune Backstab // Knockdown*
10: Skirmish Strike // Mauler Dedication**
12: Bloody Debilitations // Improved Knockdown**
14: Defensive Roll // Brutal Finish**
16: Instant Opening // Avalanche Strike**
18: Powerful Sneak // Hammer Quake**
20: Trickster's Ace // Combat Reflexes*
While it is true that getting Flat-footed at range can be an action sink, if you hide at the end of your turns, that action becomes a defensive action, often more valuable than raising a shield, especially if you are good at hiding.
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While it is true that getting Flat-footed at range can be an action sink, if you hide at the end of your turns, that action becomes a defensive action, often more valuable than raising a shield, especially if you are good at hiding.
The general issue with ranged strikes is you are already sacrificing damage for safety (melee tends to do more damage per strike), and a baseline rogue can't make more than one 'not observed' strike in a round and still end the round 'not observed' which means the fight will take probably longer and your teammates will take more damage...
Then again, putting your personal safety above the well-being of your party members is classic rogue behavior...