Because you've decided reality is the barometer and real evolution doesn't care about fantasy limitations.
Reality does have long-lived species with low birth rates and long gestation times. Or do you think Greenland sharks just aren't in the mood very often?
You're making arguments about real world Earth, not Golarion.
Yes, but the evidence suggests that monsters on Golarion are sedate and rarely attack settlements. You can't just assert that they will act in ways we don't see them acting on Golarion just because it suits your point. That's massively dishonest.
What type of knight? A non-noble mercenary knight? What era of knight? Early Celts or the later horse cavalry we see in movies with the shiny armor? What age? Why type of battlefield? What were they doing?
I have all types of books and of course the Internet to pull information from. I've read on knights for ages and their history with weapons and armor.
It's far more varied than you paint it.
It is, but once you add in that we have wheellock equivalent firearms and steel plate armour, you end up in a very narrow span of history. In that span, shields were out, swords were not a battlefield concern, polearms and warhammers were in, and the gun was just starting to rule the battlefield. Magic would change how formations operate, but that doesn't make a sword any better against plate armour.
Nobody wants it including you. Halberds were not made for indoor combat in dungeons. Polearms in general weren't. Sticking realism in games like these is something no one wants because when you study these weapons for real, you find they were made for specific purposes you don't even talk about for use in large scale battles.
Polearms still work in a dungeon, because a spear or two in a doorway means nothing is getting past you and your mages and archers can clean up.
You're bringing up some dueling competition when it is very clear halberds were not much involved in dueling culture. They were primarily made for heavy chopping against horses and heavy armor by military units involved in large scale battle.
Knights, in plate, on foot used their polearms against other dismounted knights. That's why they had hammers and back spikes on them. I brought up HEMA and duels to show that they aren't useless 1-v-1 as you were claiming they are.
It was a fairly useless weapon in close up, one on one battles easily bypassed by even a moderately skilled warrior to get into melee combat.
If that were the case, why weren't 17th-century knights using swords instead? Perhaps because a polearm and dagger were more efficient for the threats they were facing, and swords, even specialised ones, were losing the race against armour.
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I don't really think monsters rarely attacks settlements in Golarion (unless its said somewhere I don't know) its just that adventurers are that common in Golarion. I think RPG-Geek said earlier that adventurers are supposed to be rare, which (again, unless its said somewhere I don't know) its far from the truth. We have APs from pretty much everywhere in Golarion in both PF1e and PF2e, with new AP books coming monthly from the last 20-ish years in IRL time which coincides with 20-ish years of Golarion too. This means that every month a group of at least 4 people increase 3-ish levels, reaching 10 or 20 level in the spam of a few months. Just taking into account APs (because Society scenarios and random adventures that aren't relevant to make into an AP or Society scenario also increase this number) its means its very likely for most regions in Golarion to have at least someone strong enough to take down most of the serious threats that could ever happen there, with the low level threats working as "initation" for new adventurers to eventually reach those levels too.
This is why trying to aim for realism in fantasy settings is dumb because fantasy settings in TTRPGs, books, or whatever media are meant, first and foremost, to be a place where stories are told, thus realism is always going to be sidelined in favor of the narrative. This happens to all fantasy settings, not just Golarion.
I don't really think monsters rarely attacks settlements in Golarion (unless its said somewhere I don't know) its just that adventurers are that common in Golarion. I think RPG-Geek said earlier that adventurers are supposed to be rare, which (again, unless its said somewhere I don't know) its far from the truth. We have APs from pretty much everywhere in Golarion in both PF1e and PF2e, with new AP books coming monthly from the last 20-ish years in IRL time which coincides with 20-ish years of Golarion too. This means that every month a group of at least 4 people increase 3-ish levels, reaching 10 or 20 level in the spam of a few months. Just taking into account APs (because Society scenarios and random adventures that aren't relevant to make into an AP or Society scenario also increase this number) its means its very likely for most regions in Golarion to have at least someone strong enough to take down most of the serious threats that could ever happen there, with the low level threats working as "initation" for new adventurers to eventually reach those levels too.
APs are often multipart stories. With 3 and 6-part APs being a single adventure. That means, roughly 2-3 adventures per year. PFS stuff can't count because of how small the population of Golarion is there's a chance that PFS players alone, much less their multiple characters, outnumber many Golarion cities.
This is why trying to aim for realism in fantasy settings is dumb because fantasy settings in TTRPGs, books, or whatever media are meant, first and foremost, to be a place where stories are told, thus realism is always going to be sidelined in favor of the narrative. This happens to all fantasy settings, not just Golarion.
You can make a living world in fantasy, but you can't have it be a theme park. Paizo should have made multiple worlds with different themes, rather than one world trying and failing to be everything to everyone.
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The multiple setting problem that TSR learned about. They watched new settings cannibalize the fanbase of other settings for little gain in customers. It seems like the most "Oh, obviously," moment in production. From the standpoint of the publisher, why would you create more worlds if they only oncrease production costs and compete with your own shelf space without increasing revenue? Think of all the settings we "lost" over years and you'll see that there was a concerted effort to get this problem under control.
I say this as someone who really enjoys multiple settings as a consumer. I also recognize it as bad business for publishers.
Guns are a genre issue, not a realism issue.Also very true.
It can't be both?
It can't be both?Guns are a genre issue, not a realism issue.Also very true.
It seems that most of those who don’t want guns in their fantasy don’t want it for flavor rather than rules. At least from what I see.
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It can't be both?Guns are a genre issue, not a realism issue.Also very true.
Yes, it can be both.
Lack of guns is a genre conceit in many fantasy settings. Disregarding the historical presence of firearms and gunpowder artillery (going back to fire lances in ninth or tenth century China and cannons by the 13th century) in favor of late Medieval/early Renaissance (14th and 15th centuries) armor and weapons; some of which were developed because of the presence of gunpowder weapons. Honestly, for D&D and Pathfinder the presence of advanced alchemy should argue for a more widespread and earlier adoption of gunpowder than in real world history; gunpowder is (almost literally) dirt-cheap compared to magical weaponry and shooting guns (like crossbows) is much easier than learning archery (there was a reason crossbows were banned in Europe before the Crusades; you could teach someone to shoot a crossbow in a few months and a crossbow bolt could kill a fully armored noble).
The realism issue with guns has to do with reload times; muzzle-loaders are slow and even breech-loaders take a relatively long time in game rounds/actions. There was a reason guns (outside of mass battles) were often "fire once and switch to cold steel" before revolvers, percussion caps, and magazines. TBF, playability concerns similarly sped up in many cases the expected fire rate of bows and crossbows.
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Guns are a genre issue, not a realism issue.If you're stuck in the early 80s like a boomer, sure. It's not shocking that most new fantasy worlds, read 90s forward, aren't afraid to bring in guns.
Stuck in the early 80s? Don't be completely absurd.
Lord of the Rings was published in 1954-1955 and its been downhill ever since :-) :-).
And please do NOT call this Old Fart a Boomer :-) :-).
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Just report ageist comments like that and move on.
Theme parks are good, actually.
No, seriously. Don't look down on theme parks, they compress the complex history of places into a fun and interactive display. Games should be theme parks, because not even trained historians can agree on the economic impact of the production of plate mail, and most gamers don't even go that far.
I'll take a museum over a theme park any day of the week if I want a simplified take on a complex issue. Even then, you need to be wary of the biases that can be amplified when we condense things down.
Is that theme-parky? Sure! But as Walt Disney himself said, theme parks are there to evoke history in a way that's even more immersive than the real thing.Walt also said stuff about the Jewish people, and his parks highlighted a very whitewashed view of history that native groups have always had issues with. Theme parks are insidious in the way they enshrine narratives rather than highlighting truth.
The gun heavy setting is no less of a ‘theme park’
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Theme parks are good, actually.
No, seriously. Don't look down on theme parks, they compress the complex history of places into a fun and interactive display. Games should be theme parks, because not even trained historians can agree on the economic impact of the production of plate mail, and most gamers don't even go that far.
I'll take a museum over a theme park any day of the week if I want a simplified take on a complex issue. Even then, you need to be wary of the biases that can be amplified when we condense things down.
Is that theme-parky? Sure! But as Walt Disney himself said, theme parks are there to evoke history in a way that's even more immersive than the real thing.Walt also said stuff about the Jewish people, and his parks highlighted a very whitewashed view of history that native groups have always had issues with. Theme parks are insidious in the way they enshrine narratives rather than highlighting truth.
‘But hitler’ is a poor argument which you shouldn’t be making.
Different worlds is not what I'd call a good approach. WotC already has that problem.
Why would I want to learn Eberron, Greyhawk, Dragonlance, and the host of other D&D settings when I'm still studying the Forgotten Realms and don't even yet feel Intermediate in it?
You don't need to. Play the main setting you enjoy the most and use the other worlds to tell fish-out-of-water stories or as temporary stops in a higher-level game.
Someone wants me to play an Eberron campaign? Alright, I'll need a month or two to study a setting book first. Else I won't actually be able to make a character that lived in the world.
Why is it taking you longer to get up to speed with a setting than it did to outline it in the first place? The initial phase of the contest ran from June 6th to June 21st, then the 11 settings shortlisted submitted 10-page drafts for their pitch by the end of August, with the 3 finalists chosen in mid-October. From there, there was a 100-page draft was made by the 3 entrants, and the winner from these was chosen in early February 2003. So, at most 6 months to write an entire 100-page setting document, and it takes you a third of that just to read it?
No shade your way, but you seem like you like to take your time with things in a way most typically wouldn't.
When you have to deal with multiple settings in one system, you also have to grapple with questions of whether an entry exists or not from one world to another, questions like, "Is this class or class option a thing? Is this ancestry a thing? Is this weapon a thing? Why GM did you not tell me that this item that is rare in this other setting is actually a common staple in this setting?"
This is a session zero issue, not a system's issue. You could make the same complaint about rarity in PF2.
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Guns are a genre issue, not a realism issue.If you're stuck in the early 80s like a boomer, sure. It's not shocking that most new fantasy worlds, read 90s forward, aren't afraid to bring in guns.
Pulp fantasy before the 90s frequently had swords and guns side by side. He-Man and She-Ra come from this tradition. Harry Potter never brought a shotgun to deal with Voldemort despite living in the modern era. Warhammer is from 1983. Stephen King's The Gunslinger is 1982. The 90s brought us Interview With A Vampire, not guns, except for maybe holding pistols wrong. It's just a genre preference.
Personally I've been using guns since I was 5 and I was bored of them by 10, but of the guns we have I find the muzzle-loader the most interesting. Indeed my Dad always offers to take me shooting and I tell him I will happily shoot with him if it's with a bow. I follow the same preference in my fantasy purely as a matter if taste.
Pulp fantasy before the 90s frequently had swords and guns side by side. He-Man and She-Ra come from this tradition. Harry Potter never brought a shotgun to deal with Voldemort despite living in the modern era. Warhammer is from 1983. Stephen King's The Gunslinger is 1982. The 90s brought us Interview With A Vampire, not guns, except for maybe holding pistols wrong. It's just a genre preference.
Yes, but the roots of mainstream Fantasy, you LotR and D&D didn't, nor did many mainstream medieval fantasy settings. There were some in the 80s, even some that were popular, but they mostly failed to grab a foothold in the TTRPG space (Warhammer wasn't an RPG until later). As we moved into the 90s and self-publishing became easier, we started to see a lot more settings bucking the trend of Tolkien-esque fantasy in a way we saw far less of in the 80s.
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Pulp fantasy before the 90s frequently had swords and guns side by side. He-Man and She-Ra come from this tradition. Harry Potter never brought a shotgun to deal with Voldemort despite living in the modern era. Warhammer is from 1983. Stephen King's The Gunslinger is 1982. The 90s brought us Interview With A Vampire, not guns, except for maybe holding pistols wrong. It's just a genre preference.Yes, but the roots of mainstream Fantasy, you LotR and D&D didn't, nor did many mainstream medieval fantasy settings. There were some in the 80s, even some that were popular, but they mostly failed to grab a foothold in the TTRPG space (Warhammer wasn't an RPG until later). As we moved into the 90s and self-publishing became easier, we started to see a lot more settings bucking the trend of Tolkien-esque fantasy in a way we saw far less of in the 80s.
D&D had guns before the 80s even started. Early D&D even had ray guns and UFOs as far back as 1E. Tolkein's work certainly codified fantasy for a lot of people and remains the most popular expression, but the guns have always been there; similarly there have been wizards hanging out with space robots for generations.
D&D had guns before the 80s even started. Early D&D even had ray guns and UFOs as far back as 1E. Tolkein's work certainly codified fantasy for a lot of people and remains the most popular expression, but the guns have always been there; similarly there have been wizards hanging out with space robots for generations.Pulp fantasy before the 90s frequently had swords and guns side by side. He-Man and She-Ra come from this tradition. Harry Potter never brought a shotgun to deal with Voldemort despite living in the modern era. Warhammer is from 1983. Stephen King's The Gunslinger is 1982. The 90s brought us Interview With A Vampire, not guns, except for maybe holding pistols wrong. It's just a genre preference.Yes, but the roots of mainstream Fantasy, you LotR and D&D didn't, nor did many mainstream medieval fantasy settings. There were some in the 80s, even some that were popular, but they mostly failed to grab a foothold in the TTRPG space (Warhammer wasn't an RPG until later). As we moved into the 90s and self-publishing became easier, we started to see a lot more settings bucking the trend of Tolkien-esque fantasy in a way we saw far less of in the 80s.
It always had them as optional rules and magic item level rarities. Never as a core option.
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The thing I like about Golarion the most and why I use it as my main setting is because it allows me to have all the types of adventures I want in a single world without going the hassle of learning a whole new setting (and thus force my players to learn it too) just for the sake of a weekend game.
Not everybody takes tabletop games nearly as half as serious as the people that usually spend time on these forums do, so going to a player that mostly plays ttrpgs to have some fun and laughs with friends on the weekends and ask them to learn how a whole world functions for the next campaign can seriously be a bummer. Not to mention the GMs that actually create the settings themselves which takes a lot of time and people like me that like everything to be perfect just won't be able to.
This is why Golarion is just the perfect setting for me. I want sci-fi for the next campaign? Numeria. I want a western? Alkenstar. I want a more traditional campaign? The whole Inner Sea. You could even add modern too since Earth is connected to Golarion so the possibilities are nearly endless. Not to mention having all your characters in a single place also allows for crossover moments when the PCs can interact with their old characters from previous campaigns or hear about what they have been doing since. This is the kind of things players like because it allows their old characters to feel like they belong to the setting and didn't simply disappear after their campaign finished.
(Edit: I forgot to mention that I find the whole "theme park" or "kitchen sink" description of Golarion and similar settings to not really be that accurate in practice, or at least not how people use those terms. There's like a notion that settings that focus on a single "aesthethic" are usually considered to be the most accurate, when IRL we had stuff like cowboys, samurai, and pirates existing at the same time yet when a setting has those aesthetics in different regions it is considered "unrealistic" and "theme park-y". If anything, that a whole world isn't a monolith where everything is the same is more realistic than not.)
I won't deny I don't like all the changes that Paizo does to the setting, but luckily I can choose to ignore them if I'm really bothered by them (like the whole drow not existing anymore thing). Also, as I said earlier, I know that if I tried to create my own setting it would just take so much time that I really don't want to ever think of trying. I say this because since the announcement of SF2e I was planing to create my own setting to have both PF and SF content in a single setting, and in literally more than a year I barely worked on it because I wasn't capable of making something I truly liked and that wasn't "this is different enough from Starfinder or Pathfinder to be its own setting". Worldbuilding isn't really my thing, storylines and characters are, and Golarion is the perfect playground for me.
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Why do you get to pick and choose what traits we keep and which are discarded as "made-up fantasy rubbish" when you can't even handle guns in your fantasy?
Everyone gets to pick and choose. The entire underpinings of a fantasy setting, and ttrpgs in general, is inherently a series of arbitrary decisions made to achieve some personal goal.
You were so close...
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Why do you get to pick and choose what traits we keep and which are discarded as "made-up fantasy rubbish" when you can't even handle guns in your fantasy?
Everyone gets to pick and choose. The entire underpinings of a fantasy setting, and ttrpgs in general, is inherently a series of arbitrary decisions made to achieve some personal goal.
You were so close...
You missed the point. DF was trying to port every strength of fantasy monsters into the real world, while ignoring their weaknesses and how they are written into APs and the setting in general.
You missed the point. DF was trying to port every strength of fantasy monsters into the real world, while ignoring their weaknesses and how they are written into APs and the setting in general.
Why do you get to pick and choose what traits we keep and which are discarded as "made-up fantasy rubbish" when you can't even handle guns in your fantasy?
Everyone gets to pick and choose. The entire underpinings of a fantasy setting, and ttrpgs in general, is inherently a series of arbitrary decisions made to achieve some personal goal.
You were so close...
In other words “if they existed in the real world without any of the weaknesses they explicitly have in the game world they’d totally dominate!”
In other words “if they existed in the real world without any of the weaknesses they explicitly have in the game world they’d totally dominate!”You missed the point. DF was trying to port every strength of fantasy monsters into the real world, while ignoring their weaknesses and how they are written into APs and the setting in general.
Why do you get to pick and choose what traits we keep and which are discarded as "made-up fantasy rubbish" when you can't even handle guns in your fantasy?
Everyone gets to pick and choose. The entire underpinings of a fantasy setting, and ttrpgs in general, is inherently a series of arbitrary decisions made to achieve some personal goal.
You were so close...
Yes, and I'm pointing out that by his logic, they should also dominate Golarion but can't because we need a static sandbox to write APs into.
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It's an understandable question. Some folks just have to work a little harder to read.
Rough, I'm glad you're able to get where you need to go with reading in the end, in spite of it all.
I love rarity. I don't have to worry about whether or not something exists. I just have to worry about its commonality in the area. Instead of asking a question of, "Can I just make this exist in this setting?" I'm only having to ask the questions of, "Alright, what avenue can I use to get that item (or information in the case of intangibles less physical things) from point A to...
It wears too many hats right now and should be split into rarity and disruptiveness, and rated common to rare, and no risk to danger of campaign derailment.
It wears too many hats right now and should be split into rarity and disruptiveness, and rated common to rare, and no risk to danger of campaign derailment.100% agree there. A second disruptiveness measure would be very welcome. To add, when I tried Battletech, there is a 3rd meter to consider, legality. Battletech had a rarity and legality measure. Between the three, that'd be a lot of good information.
BattleTech is really good for being clear about eras, tech level, rules level, faction availability, etc. BV 3.0, when it comes, should solve the issues with jumping cLPLs being undervalued and things like MASC being overvalued.
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You missed the point. DF was trying to port every strength of fantasy monsters into the real world, while ignoring their weaknesses and how they are written into APs and the setting in general.
Why do you get to pick and choose what traits we keep and which are discarded as "made-up fantasy rubbish" when you can't even handle guns in your fantasy?
Everyone gets to pick and choose. The entire underpinings of a fantasy setting, and ttrpgs in general, is inherently a series of arbitrary decisions made to achieve some personal goal.
You were so close...
No, you missed the point. You were trying to use modern reality in a fantasy game for weapons. You seem to want to use realism when you feel like it and discard it when it is inconvenient to your arguments.
Even something like what would it really be like to be struck by a 10 ton dragon that can fly at immense speeds. Would a 150 to 200 lb. human even be able to withstand one blow from such a creature much less the breath weapon coming from its mouth? Especially with realistic Medieval weaponry.
That was the point. No one wants reality in their game. These games shouldn't focus on it in design much.
No, you missed the point. You were trying to use modern reality in a fantasy game for weapons. You seem to want to use realism when you feel like it and discard it when it is inconvenient to your arguments.
Even something like what would it really be like to be struck by a 10 ton dragon that can fly at immense speeds. Would a 150 to 200 lb. human even be able to withstand one blow from such a creature much less the breath weapon coming from its mouth? Especially with realistic Medieval weaponry.
I'd be fine with representing that in-game. Dragons should be brown pants when glimpsed from miles off, level threats. Fighting them should take an army, defensive magic, and never come without a massive cost in lives. Even an Ogre should be something you fight with as long a spear as possible because you will not survive being hit by them.
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I think the game is better because your PC does not die when they are shot with one normal arrow, unlike a real person.
I think the game is better because your PC does not die when they are shot with one normal arrow, unlike a real person.
Wear armour, hide, take cover. Above all, not getting shot should be the first line of defence.
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I think the game is better because your PC does not die when they are shot with one normal arrow, unlike a real person.Wear armour, hide, take cover. Above all, not getting shot should be the first line of defence.
There are a bunch of video games, for example, where your character dies if they get touched one time. But there are even more video games where your character can survive being shot, stabbed, etc. just so many times. Both are valid expressions, and the question should then be "which sort of game is better at delivering the sort of experience I want to create.
It seems like the sort of game you want to play is not one in which four people can defeat a dragon, and that's never not going to be the case in this family of games.
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In a level-based game, by level 5 you do have enough HP and AC from levels (so long as you pick the right class) that a cloth wearing monk can expect to walk through five pikes wielded by level 1 soldiers, slap those pike users silly and walk out, with a pause to use their Wholeness of Body.Both classes and levels are crutches. They're what I like least about popular TTRPGs.
PF2e is still way better than most other systemsNames literally two other systems, says most systems...
I have 1.15 TB of TTRPG books, which say you've hardly looked at anything out there. If WoD is as freaky as you get, why are you even speaking?
(And if your argument is levels shouldn't be doing that much, please, leave this forum, it's not good for you)Levels shouldn't provide as much vertical growth as they do. 5e's idea that we should have bounded stats is one of the few things the system does well.
You claim to actually like the system yet say ‘one of the few things the system actually does w ell”. Really?
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This whole discussion started more or less with RPG-Geek saying they want more realism in the game. But what it boils down to, like PossibleCabbage said, Pathfinder isn't a realism simulator, and (I think) never will be.
There's other games that do things like what RPG-Geek wants (13th Age does the weapon distance thing you mentioned, at least for reach only; it doesn't incorporate rules for passing through it, and I've heard of more "realistic" games where injuries are more lethal and give penalties, though I'm blanking on the names right now), but those are an entirely different genre of games that Pathfinder simply is not. With rules like that, your party would be unable to continue adventuring after 3 combats. I get that you want to see features you like in a game, but you're turning Pathfinder into a different game entirely, at which point you might as well just switch systems.
RPG-Geek, do you have examples of games that you do enjoy? I don't wanna sound gatekeepy, but it sounds like Pathfinder simply isn't the type of game for you. I've seen you pop up in a few threads the past few days with a few.... unpopular opinions, and I'm wondering if you're even enjoying the game.
Sorry for playing to the person, just genuine interest, not trying to insult.
What happened when I steppe away. I was asking what classes you guys thought were subjectively the worst and all I read was why the game is not realistic? This is not what I was expecting to read after 100 posts since I last read this thread. Well we are on the topic why is Fighter on this list for opinion of the worst class? From everything I ever seen Fighter is considered the objectively BEST Martial in the game out damaging all classes just because they got a slight +2 Attack Boost which is absurd when you think about it.
I don't think the fighter is supposed to be the "realistic martial". I think it's supposed to be the "it just works" class. For a huge number of people their entry point into the hobby is going to be something like "human fighter" and having a class with moving parts than other classes that is nonetheless effective is ideal to have in this context.
So a "high floor, low ceiling, few tricks, but it's hard to make one that isn't useful" class is a good thing to have, and the best place to put that thing is "fighter."
Outwit is just kind of weird tbh, it's the only true martial subclass that just gives up your damage gimmick. Rogues get significantly more extra skill investment but still have a way to boost their damage.
The skill bonuses are cool, and uniquely let you punch above your weight more than most other classes, though you're somewhat hamstrung by attribute issues, the fact that they're typed bonuses is also kind of weird because it means the better support your party has the less valuable your gimmick is... not to mention that your AC bonus competes against shield-like options.
Obviously you can point out you don't need to use a shield or rely on buffs, but it feels like layers upon layers of unnecessary restriction and anti-stackability despite otherwise most martial class features being completely stackable. And... again, you don't have a damage gimmick anymore. Even Investigators have a damage gimmick.
Overall Outwit's design just feels painfully cautious, like whoever wrote it was utterly terrified of the edge being too good and designed it with that fear in mind rather than a desire to make a cool and evocative skill-based edge.
Also I kind of really hate "stealth bonus against one person" just on paper. Several times I've seen an Outwit ranger try to leverage their stealth bonus against their prey only for there to be a second dude in the room who it doesn't apply to.
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Overall Outwit's design just feels painfully cautious, like whoever wrote it was utterly terrified of the edge being too good and designed it with that fear in mind rather than a desire to make a cool and evocative skill-based edge.
I feel this is a perfect description of early PF2e.
I love the idea of the Outwit Ranger. It's really good at what it does. It's just that whenever I stat one up, I'm drawn more to the other subclasses or a different class that does a similar thing, but better/more efficiently. I'd love for this subclass to get a boost somehow to make it flashier or a bigger reason to pick it. It's just difficult to justify it over the accuracy boost of Flurry or the damage boost of Precision.
The Rogue Rackets that let you choose something like Intelligence or Charisma for your Key Attribute are weird. Like when I played a Scoundrel Rogue, I still picked Dex, since "I have to roll to attack and missing isn't very fun." Like I'm still good at Feinting, Lying, etc. with a CHA of +3.