What is up with the rogue? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Larpus

2011-10-10, 05:58 PM

It's too damn red. It's rogue, man.

But seriously now, essentially the problem with the Rogue is that it doesn't have spellcasting. That's it, simple as that.

The Rogue needs to invest into skills, items, stats and circumstances to do everything he can while a somewhat close 'cousin', the Vivisectionist-flavored Pathfinder Alchemist who is indeed a tier3, can be much more at ease.

For example, a Rogue to do damage/hit things needs to either grab weapon finesse or juggle his points and put some nice Str, let's say 16. On the other hand, the Alchemist can simply buff his Str by +6 (and his size one step up) at level 1, allowing him to achieve the same result of the Rogue with a base Str of 10 or ending up with Str 22.

And that's with the quite mild buff spells, once you go into the "be creative spells", things get quite ridiculous and fast.

But there's nothing wrong with being tier4 as it essentially means "very badass mundane class". These tiers aren't measuring their powerlevels, but how much said class can break the game and/or make everyone in the table look completely useless, so being a tier3 or 4 is the agreed ideal for everyone on the table.

EDIT: Majestically ninja'ed.

RaggedAngel

2011-10-10, 05:58 PM

The consensus seems to be that Sneak Attack isn't all that viable once combat really gets going, has too many restrictions on what it can hurt, there's a little bit of MAD, and the Factorum can do everything the rogue can do, better.

What is it with skillmonkey's and misspelling their names? It's "Factotum," with two t's. I've seen that same misspelling several times before, actually; where does it come from? Was there a misprinted run of Dungeonscape?

Safety Sword

2011-10-10, 06:07 PM

What is it with skillmonkey's and misspelling their names? It's "Factotum," with two t's. I've seen that same misspelling several times before, actually; where does it come from? Was there a misprinted run of Dungeonscape?

I believe it comes from the fact that "r" and "t" sit next to each other on a QWERTY keyboard :smallwink:

hex0

2011-10-10, 06:08 PM

What is it with skillmonkey's and misspelling their names? It's "Factotum," with two t's. I've seen that same misspelling several times before, actually; where does it come from? Was there a misprinted run of Dungeonscape?

Rouge? I'd rather play a Begooglier or a Spelt-heaf. :smallcool:

I am not sure how to boost the Rogue though. It starts out strong but peeters out when you get to the point that sneak attack doesn't do much.

Maybe 10 skills per level (since Scout tried to steal their thunder by getting 8 points as well.), free Improved Evasion, HIPS, more special abilities and/or getting them faster?

Incanur

2011-10-10, 06:12 PM

mullin... rouge

Am I the only one who thought of this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moulin_Rouge) immediately? :smallredface:

On topic, rogues strike me as tending toward jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none side of tier 4.

Curious

2011-10-10, 06:14 PM

Rouge? I'd rather play a Begooglier or a Spelt-heaf. :smallcool:

I am not sure how to boost the Rogue though. It starts out strong but peeters out when you get to the point that sneak attack doesn't do much.

Maybe 10 skills per level (since Scout tried to steal their thunder by getting 8 points as well.), free Improved Evasion, HIPS, more special abilities and/or getting them faster?

Funny, this pretty much describes the PF Rogue, discounting the rules changes that also make their sneak attack more widely applicable.

Safety Sword

2011-10-10, 06:18 PM

... Begooglier ...

I giggled. And then this popped into my head:

Bard with awesome Bardic Knowledge checks? :smallamused:

Duncan_Ruadrik

2011-10-10, 06:25 PM

Well, Pathfinder definitely helped the rogue a bit.

Honestly, a lot of the problem with rogues is how people "play" them. They select feats that turn rogues into death dealing, twin blade wielding blenders. Admittedly, rogue is the ideal chassis for TWF, however, the fact of the matter is that TWF sucks, whether a rogue is using it, or a ranger.

The point is that a rogue is intended to primarily be a skillmonkey, sneak attack was added later so they wouldn't be completely useless in combat. Its hard to be a high tier (i.e. at risk of being able to easily break the game) when your main schtick (skills) can be easily duplicated without chance of failure, by a level 5 wizard. I mean, literally, any skill you choose to name, a wizard can do with a spell by level 5. Now, you (as a rogue) can use those skill ranks all day, every day. However, you risk failure and usually death or damage, by doing so.

I tell you now, my favorite class is rogue. However, I am also (or perhaps as a result) keenly aware of its shortcomings as a class. I believe that paragraph above pretty much sums it up. by mid level, you are obsolete as a skill monkey, and other classes easily out damage you in combat.

Life of a rogue.... DONT FORGET UMD!

Basket Burner

2011-10-10, 06:37 PM

Rouge puts the spelling on right or it gets the hose again.

Rogues are low end because you face a steep uphill battle to do much of anything. I think the only reason they aren't 5 is because Experts are, and the only reason Experts aren't 6 is because of something stupid involving unupdated obscure 3rd edition skills.

But to even start to contribute you have to find ways to bypass precision immunity, and to get enemies flat footed against you full time, and then you need a high number of accurate attacks to get sneak attack up to par. The other abilities tend to not matter very much for one reason or another, most of them being some variation of skills not being very good with very few exceptions that are only average.

gkathellar

2011-10-10, 06:40 PM

The point is that a rogue is intended to primarily be a skillmonkey, sneak attack was added later so they wouldn't be completely useless in combat.

The 2E Thief and the 3E Rogue are fundamentally different classes, guy. Sneak attack has been around for longer than the term skillmonkey. The older class came from an age when the closest thing to skills were percentage chances and nonweapon proficiencies that Thieves weren't especially better at (and they had backstab anyway).

I think the only reason they aren't 5 is because Experts are, and the only reason Experts aren't 6 is because of something stupid involving unupdated obscure 3rd edition skills.

Experts are Tier 6.

Lateral

2011-10-10, 06:47 PM

I am not sure how to boost the Rogue though. It starts out strong but peeters out when you get to the point that sneak attack doesn't do much.

Honestly, Psychic Rogue is your best bet as far as official stuff goes. Its mechanics are very similar to a rogue's, but it also gets 5th level psionic powers in exchange for lower skill points/level, less sneak attack (1/3 levels instead of 1/2), and some modified class abilities. (Note, however, that since their psionics are INT-based, they have even more reason to pump INT than regular rogues, so their skills/level should be similar or even superior, for pretty much the same reasons as a Factotum.)

Factotums, while further removed from the rogue's mechanics, are also a great rogue class, but I don't think I need to extoll its virtues here; you've probably heard it enough. :smallwink:

Experts are Tier 6.
They're tier 5. Never underestimate the power of choosing your own skills; they can be good skill monkeys out of combat, and even okay in combat with Iaijutsu Focus and Handle Animal. Sure, they aren't great, but they certainly aren't as bad as Warriors or non-intimidator CW samurai.

navar100

2011-10-10, 06:53 PM

Ignore the Tier System. While in its original purpose the Tier System is good to gauge how to balance the game, that's all it should be. The higher the Tier, the more care you need to ensure no one Wins D&D. The lower the Tier, the more care you need to ensure no one Loses D&D. Other than that, there's no other point.

No one Tier is Absolutely Better than any other (Caveat: The NPC classes aren't supposed to be played by PCs so can be ignored). People may have their preferences, but no one is a More Superior Player for preferring one Tier over the other. If you enjoy the rogue, sincere Hooray for you! The rogue's position in the Tier system is irrelevant to that enjoyment. Continue to play and enjoy the rogue class to your heart's content.

It is prudent to know the strengths of the class and the weaknesses. That helps you to play a better rogue and for the DM to design encounters for which your rogue will participate. That is part of playing the game. Such was not an impossibility before the Tier System came into existence. The existence of the Tier System is irrelevant to that continued knowing what entails playing a rogue.

Seerow

2011-10-10, 07:00 PM

Did anyone mention yet that the OP spelled rogue wrong?

Weezer

2011-10-10, 07:03 PM

What is it with skillmonkey's and misspelling their names? It's "Factotum," with two t's. I've seen that same misspelling several times before, actually; where does it come from? Was there a misprinted run of Dungeonscape?

There are two possible sources, I'm pretty sure something called a factorum is present in Planescape, as well as factotums (which was a rank in the factions of the setting). It is also a form of the Latin word facio, to do or make, so people who have learned Latin may make the mistake.

Lateral

2011-10-10, 07:04 PM

No one Tier is Absolutely Better than any other (Caveat: The NPC classes aren't supposed to be played by PCs so can be ignored). People may have their preferences, but no one is a More Superior Player for preferring one Tier over the other. If you enjoy the rogue, sincere Hooray for you! The rogue's position in the Tier system is irrelevant to that enjoyment. Continue to play and enjoy the rogue class to your heart's content.

It is prudent to know the strengths of the class and the weaknesses. That helps you to play a better rogue and for the DM to design encounters for which your rogue will participate. That is part of playing the game. Such was not an impossibility before the Tier System came into existence. The existence of the Tier System is irrelevant to that continued knowing what entails playing a rogue.
This is true; however, there is a reason most people tend to prefer tier 3- it allows you to contribute to pretty much any situation without having your DM wanting to kick you in the nuts. It's never boring to play, since you always have something to do, but it's never so powerful that your DM can't cope with it. So, it kind of does impact your enjoyment, but everyone's playstyle is different. However, since most of the people here think the rogue is lacking, it's definitely worthwhile to talk about moving it up tiers.

Ignore the Tier System. While in its original purpose the Tier System is good to gauge how to balance the game, that's all it should be. The higher the Tier, the more care you need to ensure no one Wins D&D. The lower the Tier, the more care you need to ensure no one Loses D&D. Other than that, there's no other point.
Well, that's kind of the point. It's no fun to be playing at a level where you are 'Losing D&D', since you either aren't contributing or the DM is basically giving you freebies to help make up for it (and that's no fun), and it's no fun for other people when you're playing at a level where you're 'Winning D&D', because it overshadows them. That's kind of why Tier 3 is the usual balance point, because it fits most peoples' playstyles. Too much below, and you aren't contributing enough to be fun; too much above, and other people get pissed because you're overshadowing them.

Now, if the rest of your group has a balance point that isn't tier 3, then that's perfectly fine and you should probably be playing at the level they are to avoid the problems mentioned above. However, there is a reason that tier 3 is the usual balance point- to a lot of people, it's the most fun.

So no, there's totally a point to talking about boosting the Rogue. Who'd a'thunk?

hex0

2011-10-10, 08:19 PM

I giggled. And then this popped into my head:

Bard with awesome Bardic Knowledge checks? :smallamused:

Beguiler/Prestige Bard/Loremaster. :smallwink:

Duncan_Ruadrik

2011-10-11, 12:10 AM

The 2E Thief and the 3E Rogue are fundamentally different classes, guy. Sneak attack has been around for longer than the term skillmonkey. The older class came from an age when the closest thing to skills were percentage chances and nonweapon proficiencies that Thieves weren't especially better at (and they had backstab anyway).

I am aware, ive been playing since 2 ed. However, during the design process of 3.0, they added Sneak attack (which is more versatile than the old 2e Backstab) but is still nothing more than a side note to the rogue trapfinding/skill niche. Back in 2e, yeah, the percentile rolls... but only thieves had such skills in any numerically worthwhile amount. Making rogues have 8+INT skill points is 3.x trying to replicate that.

All im saying is that backstab was notoriously difficult to get off, and though sneak attack is better (easier?), the niche the rogue fills is primarily that of a skill user... the same niche as that of the 2e Thief.

Regardless of this discussion of semantics and difference of edition, the rogue/thief is a skill based character, not a front line killer. such a character can be built around such a class, but damage dealt will be situational, and require good timing, tactics, and luck to pull off on a consistent basis. Other classes do not have that problem. Where a rogue truly shines is in skill use... Of course, until the wizard can do everything better, which happens around mid levels.

Grod_The_Giant

2011-10-11, 12:20 AM

What is it with skillmonkey's and misspelling their names? It's "Factotum," with two t's. I've seen that same misspelling several times before, actually; where does it come from? Was there a misprinted run of Dungeonscape?

Oh... :smallredface: I've only ever seen references to the class online, and I apparently can't read because it entered my head as "factorum" every single time.

Incanur

2011-10-11, 12:28 AM

It's the cleric more than the wizard that really excels at skill checks. Two 2nd-level spells get you +28 to any one check at level 3.

GoblinArchmage

2011-10-11, 12:32 AM

Did anyone mention yet that the OP spelled rogue wrong?

Wait a minute. The OP spelled rogue wrong?!

Mutant Sheep

2011-10-11, 12:35 AM

Wait a minute. The OP spelled rogue wrong?!

No, the OP spelled rouge right. This IS about rouge right, not the sneaky backstabbing thiefy meaniepants who should be tier 223rd, the rogue?

Psyren

2011-10-11, 12:46 AM

The idea with the tiers is to play in the same ballpark as your party, but not to be so low that the game ceases to be able to function for you without DM intervention. A T1 party is fine so long as your DM can challenge you, or even an unoptimized T1 playing with a bunch of optimized T3s and T4s. Once your party hits T4 or lower though, the game itself begins to actively fight against you - rogues struggle to contribute against a gauntlet of enemies immune to their signature attack, warlocks' options dwindle as enemies begin to pile on SR - and those are the classes that are actually better off. The Fighters, Paladins and Monks are in much more trouble by that point.

Much worse is when you are the only T4 or lower in a party of T2+. Then you get the satisfaction of knowing the game does work, so long as your friends and/or the DM go out of their way to carry/cater to you. That doesn't bother some people but I wouldn't be able to stand it.

JackRackham

2011-10-11, 01:17 AM

Rogues are definitely tier 4. They just don't have the raw power for tier 3. Creative multiclassing can get them there, however. I'm working, for example, on a TWF rogue/scout/barbarian (Swift Ambusher, Lion Spirit Totem, threw in some factotem to further uber my skills, though it's not optimal in this build w/ this DMs strict multiclassing rules) who should be able to do some pretty sick damage by charging (skill trick to bend on a charge if necessary), full attacking, and adding all those d6s to each hit. I've still got to figure out how to deal with undead and how to get my tumble high enough to tumble on a charge, however. Thus, I liiustrate why rogue is T4. Even with the multiclassing, I'll need an expensive item or obscure feat to be more than situationally badass.

EDIT: In combat. Out of combat, I should be pretty impressive. Also, I meant sick damage for a non-primary damage dealer, that's not this character's role. He's meant to be an able secondary option in melee.

jiriku

2011-10-11, 01:48 AM

Rogues are definitely tier 4. They just don't have the raw power for tier 3. Creative multiclassing can get them there, however. I'm working, for example, on a TWF rogue/scout/barbarian (Swift Ambusher, Lion Spirit Totem, threw in some factotem to further uber my skills, though it's not optimal in this build w/ this DMs strict multiclassing rules) who should be able to do some pretty sick damage by charging (skill trick to bend on a charge if necessary), full attacking, and adding all those d6s to each hit. I've still got to figure out how to deal with undead and how to get my tumble high enough to tumble on a charge, however. Thus, I liiustrate why rogue is T4. Even with the multiclassing, I'll need an expensive item or obscure feat to be more than situationally badass.

Interesting. That's very similar to the build of one of my current characters. Death's Ruin and Penetrating Strike are the ACFs you're looking for. As an alternative to tumbling on a charge, pick up a couple of items that give you short-range teleports as a swift action or a move action, and get the Battle Jump feat. Teleport into the air near the opponent, fall 10 feet (congrats, you're now charging and you've moved more than 10 feet), and attack.

Curmudgeon

2011-10-11, 02:00 AM

The Rogue is a very versatile class ─ if you've got 30+ supplements and the knowledge and skill to put them to use effectively. A Rogue, built and played effectively, is about as far from simple as you can get in D&D.

You also need to question a bunch of unwritten assumptions, such as the party stays together and individuals don't go off for solo fun while spellcasters are resting/preparing spells. An Elf Rogue needs 4 hours of trance each night; that's 5 hours less downtime than spellcasters (8 hours rest + 1 hour preparation), or 35 extra hours of adventuring time each week. Realistically, a Rogue should always stay above 130% of standard Wealth by Level because of the opportunities for solo earning, and that extra wealth can help fix weaknesses in the class. (Basically, if Use Magic Device and a wand can address your problem, you should buy that solution. :smallcool:) When you can manage UMD DC 20 reliably, a wand of Ray of Resurgence will let you skip sleep/trance entirely by removing fatigue for 15 gp/day. Boosting your extra time from +35 hours to +63 hours weekly increases your earning opportunity even more. That's more than enough for an entire second income.

Killer Angel

2011-10-11, 02:24 AM

Rogues are definitely tier 4. They just don't have the raw power for tier 3. Creative multiclassing can get them there, however.

Indeed. Also some rogue builds, with good use of UMD and feats to sneak undead and so on, can have the flexibility of a T3, but still the basic fact remains the same: Factotum is better, so the rogue is T4.

gkathellar

2011-10-11, 04:40 AM

I am aware, ive been playing since 2 ed. However, during the design process of 3.0, they added Sneak attack (which is more versatile than the old 2e Backstab) but is still nothing more than a side note to the rogue trapfinding/skill niche.

The point is that it's not. Sneak Attack is an essential part of the rogue class in a way that Backstab never was. The thief was meant for finding traps and picking pockets, but the rogue is meant to be a versatile character who fights dirty.

All im saying is that backstab was notoriously difficult to get off, and though sneak attack is better (easier?), the niche the rogue fills is primarily that of a skill user... the same niche as that of the 2e Thief.

That can be its niche. It's not its niche be necessity, as you seem to be implying. People playing their rogues as something other than 2E thieves is not necessarily incorrect.

Basket Burner

2011-10-11, 08:15 AM

They're tier 5. Never underestimate the power of choosing your own skills; they can be good skill monkeys out of combat, and even okay in combat with Iaijutsu Focus and Handle Animal. Sure, they aren't great, but they certainly aren't as bad as Warriors or non-intimidator CW samurai.

I think he was agreeing with me when he said that.

Choosing your own skills might matter if skills were good. But instead you're having to rely upon a not updated 3rd edition skill that ends up measurably inferior to even sneak attack, and arguing that a class is good because you can have a Magebred Warbeast Fleshraker for a pet is only marginally less stupid than the Catdanceonkeyboard Focus skill or the cross class UMD argument.

Particularly when the key DCs are around 8 or so. I take that back. It's more stupid than the cross class UMD argument. Hitting DC 20 reliably on half ranks isn't easily possible at level 1. You have to wait a little while. Reliably hitting DC 8 however is doable at that or any level.

To whoever said the Tier system was meaningless: So you would prefer it if the DM had the headache inducing task of trying to figure out some way in which being able to ride a BMX well is relevant to the defeat of:

A locked door behind an arbitrarily high number of assorted CR 4 traps.
A huge Animated iron statue in a throne room.
A Basilisk in its desert burrow.
A Large Fire Elemental in a mystic forge.
A Manticore on the wing above a plain.
A Phase Spider anywhere. They're tricky creatures like that.
A couple of Centaur Archers in a light to medium wood.
A Howler/Allip tag team in an abandoned temple to a dark god.
A Grimlock assault team (4 members) hidden in a cavern.
A Cleric of Hextor (with his dozen zombies) in a crypt.

Because I and others would prefer it if no one needs an Eigen Plot just to contribute at all. And that is why low tiers are near universally regarded as bad.

Amphetryon

2011-10-11, 10:35 AM

Why each class is in its tier (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?PHPSESSID=gkngul818jpqa8191rekh37oo4&topic=5070.0)

The consensus seems to be that Sneak Attack isn't all that viable once combat really gets going, has too many restrictions on what it can hurt, there's a little bit of MAD, and the Factorum can do everything the rogue can do, better.Emphasis mine.

You mean "Factotum", right? If we're going to get on the OP for misspelling one of the classes, we should be consistent about it. :smallwink:

To address the OP's question, basically, it's what everyone else already said. Rogues are either extremely situationally useful in and out of combat, or are extremely splat-book dependent, or both. Tier 3 doesn't generally need to rely on additional sources, situational modifiers, or specific DM allowances (the potion-throwing rogue, the rogue who never sleeps and therefore has twice as much phat lewt, etc.).

Incanur

2011-10-11, 10:39 AM

The idea that characters who sleep less should get more loot and/or xp is super problematic. It also does little to help the rogue, which has no class ability to sleep less than anybody else.

Talya

2011-10-11, 10:42 AM

I'd like to thank everyone who complained about the spelling.

My petpeevilepsy almost sent me into convulsions on seeing the thread title. Reading and laughing at all the responses may have saved my life.

Doug Lampert

2011-10-11, 11:23 AM

The idea that characters who sleep less should get more loot and/or xp is super problematic. It also does little to help the rogue, which has no class ability to sleep less than anybody else.

It does LOTS for your wealth and XP problems. It eliminates them as the logical consequence of going off alone in a part of the world intended to seriously challenge the entire party all by your lonesome with no flanking body and no action economy advantage hits you.

Your character will never have anything else to worry about for as long as he's alive....

That'll be what? Five minutes?

DougL

Basket Burner

2011-10-11, 11:58 AM

And if that were a valid argument, it would mean that you should make your character's race Warforged and not that you should make their class Rogue, or any other specific class.

Zaq

2011-10-11, 01:10 PM

[I'd add to the pile of complaints about spelling, but I don't have the energy right now.]

One of my biggest problems with the Rogue is that they're really, really squishy, and don't have much built-in ability to keep themselves alive. They can have decent, but rarely great, AC at low-mid levels if they build for it (muckdwller Rogues unite!), but low HD, reliance on enough stats that you're not just "primary + CON," and a tendency to want to get up close and personal (flanking IS the easiest way to get SA, after all) means that a lot of Rogues don't stay standing nearly as long as they should. Most other classes with similarly low defenses usually have something keeping them away from the action or giving them an additional line of defense, but Rogues are pretty much just fragile out of the box.

Yes, if you get HiPS from somewhere, your survivability goes way up, but that's not something the Rogue itself gets out of the box, and many of the simplest methods of getting it (templates, f'rinstance) are available to everyone. An unseen Rogue will probably be a living Rogue, but staying unseen while actually killing things isn't a skill that a Rogue can just get on its own, especially not until mid-high levels (when you can buy off the LA, get into the PrC, buy the magic items, find the spare feats, or whatever).

That's not the only problem with the Rogue, of course, but it's the one that sticks out in my mind.

Person_Man

2011-10-11, 02:58 PM

If your character has a large number of spells or psionics to choose from, and they scale up to level 9, then it is probably Tier 1 or 2.

If the primary goal of your character is to make a full attack most rounds of most combats, then it is Tier 4 or lower. No matter how much damage your Tier 4 or lower build does, it's basically doing the same thing every round of every combat, and it's fairly easy for your DM to just make enemies harder to hit and/or tougher in order to compensate.

Everything else tends to fit into the Tier 3 range. Fully scaled maneuvers, vestiges, or soulmelds - spells that scale up to level 9 but from a more limited list, or has access to psionics that scale up to level 6, and so on. The main thing is that your character has a variety of options to choose from beyond "I make a full attack" - but no so many options that you can proactively reshape reality and/or predict the future in order to defeat your enemies. This is generally considered the "sweet spot" of 3.X D&D, though YMMV.

hex0

2011-10-11, 04:25 PM

There isn't a variant (that I know of) that gives rogues spells flat out, but you could do that too by balancing them based on the Spellthief.

Give them the spells known and progression of the Spellthief but limit the list to stuff Rogues would use (Knock, Animate Rope, Invisibility, etc.). To balance this, change the Sneak Attack progression to at first and every 3 levels after. This would make it not 'as bad' as Spellthief, but since they would not get anything else the Spellthief gets it would be balanced. Maybe some advanced learning (or just make it an additional special ability).

Curmudgeon

2011-10-11, 04:55 PM

The idea that characters who sleep less should get more loot and/or xp is super problematic.
That's not a rules issue, and a good DM can either set aside time for solo adventuring or resolve some low-risk extra earning (following suspected cheating spouses, for instance) with dice rolls. It's only problematic if you have a set idea of how the game is "supposed" to be played and can't break out of your preconceptions.

And if that were a valid argument, it would mean that you should make your character's race Warforged and not that you should make their class Rogue, or any other specific class.
Class is usually the most important issue when it comes to down time. A Warforged Wizard is still doing 9 hours of rest and spell preparation every day; that's a cost of the class regardless of the characteristics of the race. (Since that race has more ability penalties than bonuses, Warforged is not generally a good fit for most classes.)

What is a good fit for the Rogue class is Use Magic Device and a wand of Ray of Resurgence, as I already mentioned. You don't have to be an Elf to make nighttime solo earning a real possibility; that just makes it easier at low levels. Alleviating fatigue using magic is a straightforward cost of spending nights without sleep. In itself it's not a big issue ─ if you've got the class skills and resources to address it, of course.

All classes have their own mix of costs and benefits. Required down time is a substantial cost of most primary spellcasting classes; the Rogue class doesn't have that cost. Having skills that make solo earning possible (in areas like espionage, second story work, and surveillance, for instance) are a benefit of the Rogue class, but not most other classes. Requiring all classes to conform to the scheduling limitations of spellcasters isn't a rules requirement, and should not be a gameplay requirement either. Those characters get the spellcasting power; Rogues get earning potential.

If you've got DM time or attention limitations, you can simply dump extra gp on appropriate Rogue characters without playing that out. (It's not as thrilling as a detailed shadowing of suspected enemy operatives as a freelance agent of the royal secret service, but it's a reasonable compromise.) What isn't reasonable is insisting that characters who are good at earning should make no more than characters who aren't.

From the very first paragraph of the Rogue class description (Player's Handbook, page 49):
Rogues share little in common with each other. Some are stealthy thieves. Others are silver-tongued tricksters. Still others are scouts, infiltrators, spies, diplomats, or thugs. What they share is versatility, adaptability, and resourcefulness. In general, rogues are skilled at getting what others don’t want them to get: entrance into a locked treasure vault, safe passage past a deadly trap, secret battle plans, a guard’s trust, or some random person’s pocket money. The class's many skill options mean that you're not required to emphasize a Rogue's earning potential. But if you have built a Rogue who's "skilled at getting what others don’t want them to get" and that equates to extra gp, you're playing the class exactly as designed and should get the rewards concomitant with your build choices. It's right there in the rulebook.

Person_Man

2011-10-11, 05:08 PM

There isn't a variant (that I know of) that gives rogues spells flat out [snip]

Within the normal rules, a Rogue can use spells fairly easy with UMD. The DM just gives the Rogue (or any weaker build) more magic items to compensate as needed.

If you want actual casting as a class ability, consider a simple house rule: Any Tier 4 or lower class gets free Gestalt with any other Tier 4 or lower class. Tier 3 classes are left as is. Tier 1-2 classes are asked not to use abusive spells or metamagic or action advantage. So a typical party might be a Rogue 5//Warmage 5, a Totemist 5, a Druid 5 who doesn't use Natural Spell, and a Wizard 5 who doesn't use the Batman guide. Tier 4-6 gets a second set of options to play with, Tier 3 is still Tier 3, Tier 1-2 is still Tier 1-2 but doesn't break the game.

hex0

2011-10-11, 05:56 PM

If you want actual casting as a class ability, consider a simple house rule: Any Tier 4 or lower class gets free Gestalt with any other Tier 4 or lower class. Tier 3 classes are left as is. Tier 1-2 classes are asked not to use abusive spells or metamagic or action advantage. So a typical party might be a Rogue 5//Warmage 5, a Totemist 5, a Druid 5 who doesn't use Natural Spell, and a Wizard 5 who doesn't use the Batman guide. Tier 4-6 gets a second set of options to play with, Tier 3 is still Tier 3, Tier 1-2 is still Tier 1-2 but doesn't break the game.

Warlock/Rogue would be comparable to Factotum, no?

What tier is Savant?

navar100

2011-10-11, 06:11 PM

I think he was agreeing with me when he said that.

Choosing your own skills might matter if skills were good. But instead you're having to rely upon a not updated 3rd edition skill that ends up measurably inferior to even sneak attack, and arguing that a class is good because you can have a Magebred Warbeast Fleshraker for a pet is only marginally less stupid than the Catdanceonkeyboard Focus skill or the cross class UMD argument.

Particularly when the key DCs are around 8 or so. I take that back. It's more stupid than the cross class UMD argument. Hitting DC 20 reliably on half ranks isn't easily possible at level 1. You have to wait a little while. Reliably hitting DC 8 however is doable at that or any level.

To whoever said the Tier system was meaningless: So you would prefer it if the DM had the headache inducing task of trying to figure out some way in which being able to ride a BMX well is relevant to the defeat of:

A locked door behind an arbitrarily high number of assorted CR 4 traps.
A huge Animated iron statue in a throne room.
A Basilisk in its desert burrow.
A Large Fire Elemental in a mystic forge.
A Manticore on the wing above a plain.
A Phase Spider anywhere. They're tricky creatures like that.
A couple of Centaur Archers in a light to medium wood.
A Howler/Allip tag team in an abandoned temple to a dark god.
A Grimlock assault team (4 members) hidden in a cavern.
A Cleric of Hextor (with his dozen zombies) in a crypt.

Because I and others would prefer it if no one needs an Eigen Plot just to contribute at all. And that is why low tiers are near universally regarded as bad.

As the DM it is your job to ensure every character can do something in the encounters you design, accepting a few cases a PC is in a sub-optimal situation where he can't use his best trick and other cases where he's uber-optimal and shines so brightly he has to wear shades. If you resent this, you should not be the DM.

The player has his part to do to build a competent a character. Note the key word is competent, not uberpowerful master overlord killer of every monster ever published everywhere all the time without fail by himself.

Basket Burner

2011-10-11, 06:13 PM

JaronK

2011-10-11, 06:19 PM

So the Rogue goes off and does a solo mission. Let's ignore Warforged need even less sleep here. The rest of the party is doing... what? Waiting? Doing their own thing? Wasn't there a thread recently complaining that the Rogue wanted to solo stuff while the other people wanted to play D&D?

Stuff like this is why it's so much fun to actually play an all skillmonkey group, and then do D&D like it's Shadowrun. Beguiler + Factotum + Unarmed Swordsage + Kobold Domain Cloistered Cleric!

JaronK

Safety Sword

2011-10-11, 06:24 PM

Kish

2011-10-11, 06:25 PM

Did anyone mention yet that the OP spelled rogue wrong?
Don't believe anyone did, no.

"A ranger is never late. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when the DM wants him to." - making a tracking roll to speed up how quickly you chase down your target is ultimately useless in D&D, as you will always arrive whenever the DM means for you to arrive. Tracking is a railroading tool designed to look like a class feature. And all us rangers fell for it.

This would seem to presume that only a class feature which means "you couldn't finish the adventure without this" has value, and as such it could be used for any class feature. Tracking can easily, logically, intuitively make the difference between "You corner your enemy and fight him while he's wounded and fleeing" and, "He ambushes you five days later on a battleground of his choosing," or between, "The King rewards you for finding the kidnappers and saving his son's life" and "The King bellows that you're worthless and orders you out of the palace when he gets his son back in pieces."

(Off-topic? Well, I'm afraid I lack an opinion of cosmetics, so.)

Hiro Protagonest

2011-10-11, 06:28 PM

I've always thought D&D needed more d6! :smalltongue:

Factotum and Unarmed Swordsage have d8 hit die.

Fax Celestis

2011-10-11, 06:33 PM

Safety Sword

2011-10-11, 06:33 PM

Factotum and Unarmed Swordsage have d8 hit die.

But Shadowrun...
d6...
Never mind.

hex0

2011-10-11, 06:39 PM

Basically just described the psychic rogue (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723b).

I know. Put this is the...uhh...Arcane Rogue? :smallamused:

Savant is in Dragon Compendium. It is the grand-pep-pep of the Factotum. Gets real sneak attack, 4th level arcane (then 4th level divine) spells (weird), any bonus feat, ranged skill help stuff. Would be a nice gestalt for Rogue, I'd imagine.

JaronK

2011-10-11, 06:46 PM

Factotum and Unarmed Swordsage have d8 hit die.

It's a Shadowrun joke. Shadowrun is a game that's often about stealth and infiltration and planning (which is what I meant when I said playing D&D like it's Shadowrun when using all skillmonkeys), but the dice system involves throwing enormous numbers of d6s... my last mage threw 19 dice when casting. And that's what he was referencing.

Now, joke appropriately ruined?

JaronK

Safety Sword

2011-10-11, 07:12 PM

It's a Shadowrun joke. Shadowrun is a game that's often about stealth and infiltration and planning (which is what I meant when I said playing D&D like it's Shadowrun when using all skillmonkeys), but the dice system involves throwing enormous numbers of d6s... my last mage threw 19 dice when casting. And that's what he was referencing.

Now, joke appropriately ruined?

JaronK

I think we've explained it to death enough :smallsigh:

Psyren

2011-10-11, 07:29 PM

What tier is Savant?

Savant?

They're in Dragon Compendium - the other base class with all skills as class skills. I consider them the beta for the Factotum and/or Archivist.

As for tier, I'd put them no higher than 4 myself. They get a pitiful amount of sneak attack (3/20?? Why even bother??) and two very limited and VERY DELAYED spell lists; even worse, they have a different casting stat for each. They get first-level arcane spells at 5, and 1st-level divine spells at 10 - that should give you an idea of how useful their magic will be to most campaigns.

Their big schtick is being able to help the party succeed at skill checks - a nearby ally can use their ranks in a given skill or the Savant's. The Savant has to practically be breathing down their neck for it to work though.

Biffoniacus_Furiou

2011-10-11, 08:16 PM

Any excuse to trot this out. (http://www.darklegacycomics.com/41.html)

JackRackham

2011-10-12, 12:40 AM

Interesting. That's very similar to the build of one of my current characters. Death's Ruin and Penetrating Strike are the ACFs you're looking for. As an alternative to tumbling on a charge, pick up a couple of items that give you short-range teleports as a swift action or a move action, and get the Battle Jump feat. Teleport into the air near the opponent, fall 10 feet (congrats, you're now charging and you've moved more than 10 feet), and attack.
Here's a question, any ideas on ways to get past uncanny dodge (which, for some reason they decided to give to every-daggone-thing) that are not limited to flanking (as is penetrating strike). My character is intended to either charge or tumble through (skill trick) to set up his sneak attack/skirmish combo

Frankly, I forgot about uncanny dodge and was worried mostly about undead. If i can't think of something, the build is boned and the character I had in mind disappears, replaced by a factotum or swordsage. :/

Also: No flaws, etc and I'm already multi-classed more than I care to, so feats and class options are pretty limited. (5 feats @ level 9, 2 of which are spent on non-combat stuff)

Serpentine

2011-10-12, 12:50 AM

What is it with skillmonkey's and misspelling their names? It's "Factotum," with two t's. I've seen that same misspelling several times before, actually; where does it come from? Was there a misprinted run of Dungeonscape?*skillmonkeys :smallamused:

Makes me sad that Rogues are Tier 4. I take them as pretty much the perfectly balanced class :smallfrown:

JaronK

2011-10-12, 01:17 AM

T4 is a perfectly legitimate balance point. Heck the intended balance point was T5.

JaronK

Gwendol

2011-10-12, 01:25 AM

Why sad? Tiers says nothing of your enjoyment in playing a certain class, regardless of what is being said on this board.

JackRackham

2011-10-12, 01:54 AM

T4 is a perfectly legitimate balance point. Heck the intended balance point was T5.

JaronK Hey JaronK, I was looking at your discussion of the factotum on your tier system post just now. Where did you see that a fighter's feats were EX? I'm looking at playing a factotum and, if that's right it'd be great, but I can't find justification.

JaronK

2011-10-12, 02:17 AM

Hey JaronK, I was looking at your discussion of the factotum on your tier system post just now. Where did you see that a fighter's feats were EX? I'm looking at playing a factotum and, if that's right it'd be great, but I can't find justification.

Feats are always Ex unless otherwise marked.

Also, Sp and Su abilities are theoretically all marked as such (Sp abilities must be because they need a caster level), and Na abilities are only those which are innate to the physical form (which means classes can't grant them, unless we're talking about a shapeshifting class that gives claw attacks or something). As such, all class abilities that are not otherwise marked are Ex.

Furthermore, feats aren't magical (eliminates Su and Sp) and are granted by something other than the innate physical form (eliminates Na) and thus must be Ex.

So, in three ways, they're Ex.

If you really want to get into it, check out Rules of the Game: All About Polymorph for a massive discussion of this topic. IIRC the FAQ also talks about it a bit in the Factotum section... they're talking about sneak attack, but the logic applies.

JaronK

Killer Angel

2011-10-12, 02:38 AM

As the DM it is your job to ensure every character can do something in the encounters you design, accepting a few cases a PC is in a sub-optimal situation where he can't use his best trick and other cases where he's uber-optimal and shines so brightly he has to wear shades. If you resent this, you should not be the DM.

The player has his part to do to build a competent a character. Note the key word is competent,

The fact is that some classes, cannot be competent in the majority of situations, and the DM job is not to to struggle almost every single session to find a way to make shine that character...
When you have a group with a cleric, a sorcerer, a warblade and a rogue, of course the rogue sometime will shine and sometime will be sub-optimal, but if you have a group with a druid, a wizard, a factotum and a monk (real case), well, it's a problem.
Put the same monk in a group with a ranger, a duskblade and a bard, and things will be easier.

GiedalCaine

2011-10-12, 02:56 AM

The problem with rouge is that, although useful in a variety of circumstances, really all it does is redden things.

It's 3 in the morning. I'm sitting here browsing at work. It took me about 3 times reading this before I realized that "redden" isn't some new slang term for "damage in combat."

Bravo!

Curmudgeon

2011-10-12, 04:36 AM

Feats are always Ex unless otherwise marked.
I believe you're making that up, because I can't find anything in the rules which agrees with you. Not a single mention of the term "Extraordinary" in the entire PH Feats chapter, and the same for MM Chapter 6: Monster Skills and Feats. If you're trying to make an inference from the monster Glossary definition of Special Ability (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/glossary&term=Glossary_dnd_specialability&alpha=S) (which MM definition wouldn't be an appropriate application for PH class features anyway), note that in all the PH class descriptions "special ability" is used for class features just twice:

Rogue special abilities chosen starting at level 10
Special abilities granted to the master by a familiar
Other Class Features (the proper term, as specified on PH page 24) are labeled as Special in the class tables, but not as "special abilities". These special class features are only Extraordinary when explicitly labeled as such.

Na abilities are only those which are innate to the physical form (which means classes can't grant them, unless we're talking about a shapeshifting class that gives claw attacks or something).
Sorry, you've misread the rule (Player's Handbook, page 180):

Natural Abilities: This category includes abilities a creature has because of its physical nature, such as a bird’s ability to fly. "Includes" is definitely not the same as "are only".

As such, all class abilities that are not otherwise marked are Ex.
Now I know you're making that up, because the rulebook says otherwise.

Natural abilities are those not otherwise designated as extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like.
The Fighter Bonus Feats class feature is not labeled as Extraordinary. It's just training, which comes about through natural, non-extraordinary processes (experience and other opportunities to develop skills by dint of a martial focus). As explained in the class description (PH pages 37-38):
In addition to general fighting prowess, each fighter develops particular specialties of his own. A given fighter may be especially capable with certain weapons, another might be trained to execute specific fancy maneuvers. As fighters gain experience, they get more opportunities to develop their fighting skills. Thanks to their focus on combat maneuvers, they can master the most difficult ones relatively quickly.

Rising Phoenix

2011-10-12, 05:08 AM

Aren't PF rogues closer to tier 3 than 3.5 ones? (exluding 3.5 exploits that were banished in PF...)

Killer Angel

2011-10-12, 05:31 AM

Aren't PF rogues closer to tier 3 than 3.5 ones? (exluding 3.5 exploits that were banished in PF...)

mmm...
The skills merging means they can fill better the role of skillmonkeys (good for versatility); Sneak Attack working on everything is also very good for versatility and so are Rogue Talents.
They're indeed closer, if not low T3.

Talya

2011-10-12, 05:45 AM

Don't believe anyone did, no.

This would seem to presume that only a class feature which means "you couldn't finish the adventure without this" has value, and as such it could be used for any class feature. Tracking can easily, logically, intuitively make the difference between "You corner your enemy and fight him while he's wounded and fleeing" and, "He ambushes you five days later on a battleground of his choosing," or between, "The King rewards you for finding the kidnappers and saving his son's life" and "The King bellows that you're worthless and orders you out of the palace when he gets his son back in pieces."

(Off-topic? Well, I'm afraid I lack an opinion of cosmetics, so.)

The DM tailors his adventure to the people playing it. Without a tracker, he finds another way to allow the players to find the right direction. Similarly, without a trapfinder, the dungeon either loses its traps, or gains traps that the whole family can disarm.

Boci

2011-10-12, 05:50 AM

That's not a rules issue, and a good DM can either set aside time for solo adventuring or resolve some low-risk extra earning (following suspected cheating spouses, for instance) with dice rolls. It's only problematic if you have a set idea of how the game is "supposed" to be played and can't break out of your preconceptions.

That's not the only reason its problomatic.

1. The other players being able to do nothing whilst the rogue if off making extra cash.

2. Unless the rogue share's their gains, it opens up the door for unequal distribution of treasure. "Well you didn't help much against the undead, so I don't see why you should get as much as the cleric. Besides, you'll make up the difference soon enough with your midnight theivery"

Gwendol

2011-10-12, 06:08 AM

Basket Burner

2011-10-12, 06:30 AM

Stuff like this is why it's so much fun to actually play an all skillmonkey group, and then do D&D like it's Shadowrun. Beguiler + Factotum + Unarmed Swordsage + Kobold Domain Cloistered Cleric!

JaronK

That sounds incredibly limiting and narrow. Not as bad as an all melee party, but closer to it than you might think.

I consider it debatable as to whether a 3.5 Rogue is tier 4 or 5. Mostly because of the sheer volume of stuff they have to counter to do their thing. It's a lot more involved than being able to get off a charge, that's for sure. About the only reason it is questionable is because they have to be higher than Experts, which are listed at 5 for some reason.

PF Rogues though? Clear tier 5, no question about it. And a rather low end one at that. They make tier 5 for the same reason the Monk does - they can theoretically do a bunch of stuff, but in practice cannot do much of anything.

Killer Angel

2011-10-12, 06:43 AM

PF Rogues though? Clear tier 5, no question about it. And a rather low end one at that.

:smallconfused:
3.5 rogue is T4 (even if you're uncertain about it), PF's version is stronger, and you put it in the lower T5 without question?!?

Basket Burner

2011-10-12, 06:51 AM

:smallconfused:
3.5 rogue is T4 (even if you're uncertain about it), PF's version is stronger, and you put it in the lower T5 without question?!?

3.5 Rogues are questionably 4 or 5 because of the sheer volume of things they have to go through to do their thing which makes them a lot like the 3.5 Fighter, except that the list is longer. PF Rogues still have a sheer volume of things they have to go through to do their thing. It's a somewhat different volume, but it's still a long checklist you have to meet. You cannot cross off most of the entries on that check list though, no matter how hard you try. And that puts you in the Monk category. They can theoretically do all these things, but in practice they couldn't sneak attack anything if it stood there and nicely provided them with directions.

Anarchy_Kanya

2011-10-12, 07:27 AM

I believe you're making that up, because I can't find anything in the rules which agrees with you. Not a single mention of the term "Extraordinary" in the entire PH Feats chapter, and the same for MM Chapter 6: Monster Skills and Feats. If you're trying to make an inference from the monster Glossary definition of Special Ability (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/glossary&term=Glossary_dnd_specialability&alpha=S) (which MM definition wouldn't be an appropriate application for PH class features anyway), note that in all the PH class descriptions "special ability" is used for class features just twice:

Rogue special abilities chosen starting at level 10
Special abilities granted to the master by a familiar
Other Class Features (the proper term, as specified on PH page 24) are labeled as Special in the class tables, but not as "special abilities". These special class features are only Extraordinary when explicitly labeled as such.

Sorry, you've misread the rule (Player's Handbook, page 180):
"Includes" is definitely not the same as "are only".

Now I know you're making that up, because the rulebook says otherwise.

The Fighter Bonus Feats class feature is not labeled as Extraordinary. It's just training, which comes about through natural, non-extraordinary processes (experience and other opportunities to develop skills by dint of a martial focus). As explained in the class description (PH pages 37-38):
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12011975&postcount=2

That sounds incredibly limiting and narrow. Not as bad as an all melee party, but closer to it than you might think.

I consider it debatable as to whether a 3.5 Rogue is tier 4 or 5. Mostly because of the sheer volume of stuff they have to counter to do their thing. It's a lot more involved than being able to get off a charge, that's for sure. About the only reason it is questionable is because they have to be higher than Experts, which are listed at 5 for some reason.

PF Rogues though? Clear tier 5, no question about it. And a rather low end one at that. They make tier 5 for the same reason the Monk does - they can theoretically do a bunch of stuff, but in practice cannot do much of anything.
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4874.0

Tytalus

2011-10-12, 07:44 AM

Heck the intended balance point was T5.

Interesting claim. Source?

gkathellar

2011-10-12, 07:55 AM

It seems pretty self-evident in PHB class design. Most of the classes above Tier 4-5 downgrade to that level if played "as intended." Blaster wizards, healbot clerics and druids and bards who can't figure out what they're supposed to be doing are pretty much the default assumptions of the PHB.

Rising Phoenix

2011-10-12, 07:56 AM

3.5 Rogues are questionably 4 or 5 because of the sheer volume of things they have to go through to do their thing which makes them a lot like the 3.5 Fighter, except that the list is longer. PF Rogues still have a sheer volume of things they have to go through to do their thing. It's a somewhat different volume, but it's still a long checklist you have to meet. You cannot cross off most of the entries on that check list though, no matter how hard you try. And that puts you in the Monk category. They can theoretically do all these things, but in practice they couldn't sneak attack anything if it stood there and nicely provided them with directions.

Um... if you agree that Factotum is mid Tier 3 than PF rogue isn't that far behind. Sure they are more MAD and they aren't as easy to make take off the ground, but they do get innate spells (granted 2/day, but pick the right ones and your versatility increases) and then there's all those ninja tricks added to the list. Edit: Ok it's only 1st level spells... I thought they could get 3rd level spells...

Also you have trouble qualifying for sneak attack? You play solo? You DO need a flanking buddy or you could just use hit and run tactics (bombs away, hide, repeat) or just burn a few rogue talents to get invisibility or the like...

A Human rogue with an INT score of 14 that adds his fav. class bonus to skills has no problems filling his skill department...

Angry Bob

2011-10-12, 08:05 AM

Interesting claim. Source?

Isn't JaronK the author of the Tier System as we know it?

Psyren

2011-10-12, 08:13 AM

I don't think T5 was ever intended. T5 generally results when WotC (a) tries to shoehorn "cool" things onto a class without taking the time to consider if they have any synergy with each other or with the class' goals, (b) grossly overvalues full BAB, or (c) a combination of both.

Even if you argue that T5 could have been an intended balance point, this fact was clearly not communicated to the monster designers, who by and large expect you to be at least T4 or else you're getting carried and fiat-ed through nearly every encounter.

@ Rising Phoenix: I'm with you, PF Rogue is definitely T3. Their primary weaknesses (combat, and having to choose between "social rogue" and "utility rogue") were just about eliminated in PF, and that's before you even get into archetypes.

Amphetryon

2011-10-12, 08:17 AM

Interesting claim. Source?

As indicated by others, the original designers and playtesters would appear (by the notes we have) to consider a blaster wizard, a healbot cleric, a sword & board fighter, and a rogue who doesn't optimize for either maximum UMD or maximum SA as their default standards. That sounds a lot like a low Tier 4/High Tier 5 baseline.

gkathellar

2011-10-12, 08:37 AM

Even if you argue that T5 could have been an intended balance point, this fact was clearly not communicated to the monster designers, who by and large expect you to be at least T4 or else you're getting carried and fiat-ed through nearly every encounter.

I absolutely agree with this. 3E's monster design philosophy is clearly, "Hey, look at all these cool systems and subsystems and powers and ideas! Monsters decked out with tons of these options would make for really fun, interesting fights!" Meanwhile, its class design philosophy is, "Okay, I know we have all these systems and subsystems and powers and ideas, but let's not get carried away with them." And of course whoever ended up writing the Spells chapter might as well have been working on an entirely different game.

navar100

2011-10-12, 08:49 AM

The fact is that some classes, cannot be competent in the majority of situations, and the DM job is not to to struggle almost every single session to find a way to make shine that character...
When you have a group with a cleric, a sorcerer, a warblade and a rogue, of course the rogue sometime will shine and sometime will be sub-optimal, but if you have a group with a druid, a wizard, a factotum and a monk (real case), well, it's a problem.
Put the same monk in a group with a ranger, a duskblade and a bard, and things will be easier.

Problem for you, maybe, but not universally true. My group's second campaign even had a Divine Metamagic Persistent Spell cleric, back when Persistent Spell was only +4 levels, and the Rogue, Barbarian, and Fighter had no problems whatsoever. There were also a Wizard and Psion. The Muggles of the party all contributed well to the campaign.

Certainly the cleric had versatility. He could go all hog-wild beat down, be a spell-slinger extraordinaire, or be Healbot Buffman. That is Tier 1 after all. He did all three over the course of the campaign. That still did not take away anything the Muggles did. If they needed a little magic help from the cleric, wizard, or psion, they got it. The spellcasters did not resent it. The players had the terrible flaw of teamwork. The spellcasters could not save the day by themselves anyway because bad guys have the unfortunate audacity of actually making their saving throws from time to time. Plus, despite their power, they did not have every spell ever published with them all the time exactly when they need it. Funny how actual game play differs from hypothetical thought experiments.

The DM certainly worked hard on the campaign. It wasn't difficult because one player was a cleric while another was a fighter. It was an admitted high-powered campaign with 6-7 players. His personal style likes to have the bad guy out number the party at least two to one. It was the volume involved, not the particulars of classes. He enjoyed it, not resented it.

Tytalus

2011-10-12, 08:49 AM

Isn't JaronK the author of the Tier System as we know it?

It's a claim about D&D design, not the tier system.

As indicated by others, the original designers and playtesters would appear (by the notes we have) to consider a blaster wizard, a healbot cleric, a sword & board fighter, and a rogue who doesn't optimize for either maximum UMD or maximum SA as their default standards. That sounds a lot like a low Tier 4/High Tier 5 baseline.

I don't see wizards and clerics as the claimed T5, even if it's blasters and healbots. Given oddles of spells, scrolls and spontaneous casting, it's hard to argue for T4 even.

gkathellar

2011-10-12, 09:00 AM

I don't see wizards and clerics as the claimed T5, even if it's blasters and healbots. Given oddles of spells, scrolls and spontaneous casting, it's hard to argue for T4 even.

Yeah, but the official healbot class and the official blaster class clock in at Tiers 5 and 4, respectively, so clerics and wizards trying to fill those roles end up roughly around there (wizards a little lower, clerics a little higher).

Amphetryon

2011-10-12, 09:06 AM

It's a claim about D&D design, not the tier system.

I don't see wizards and clerics as the claimed T5, even if it's blasters and healbots. Given oddles of spells, scrolls and spontaneous casting, it's hard to argue for T4 even.
You're assuming "oodles of spells and scrolls" that aren't a given, from what I can tell. A wizard that doesn't do anything other than blast is probably mid-Tier 4, as is a healbot cleric. Pair them with low Tier 5 builds (rogue with limited SA and no focus on UMD, S&B fighter) and the party functions right around Tier 5. The fact that a DM could give more magical gewgaws as treasure to boost the casters doesn't mean that it's a certainty, and if all the spontaneity goes toward casting CLW (since that's the only 'spontaneous casting' in a default Fighter/Wizard/Rogue/Cleric group), it doesn't amount to much of a boon.

Also, I seem to remember that in 3.0, Druids didn't get spontaneous SNA.

Killer Angel

2011-10-12, 09:17 AM

Problem for you, maybe, but not universally true. My group's second campaign even had a Divine Metamagic Persistent Spell cleric, back when Persistent Spell was only +4 levels, and the Rogue, Barbarian, and Fighter had no problems whatsoever. There were also a Wizard and Psion. The Muggles of the party all contributed well to the campaign.

Personal anecdotes, while useful, don't bear a so great significance, 'cause situations may vary a lot between groups, DMs and adventures' styles. Exceptions exist.
The fact undeniable is that there is a huge gap in versatility and raw power between a wizard and a monk, and if the monk's player find its PC "inadequate", you cannot simply blame the DM.

Funny how actual game play differs from hypothetical thought experiments.

I can agree on this

Fax Celestis

2011-10-12, 10:34 AM

What's the point of being a scoundrel if you can't be one? We're talking about a rogue, not a paladin or knight here. He'll probably just slip away while the rest are sleeping, tending their weapons or reading up on their spells.

You can be a scoundrel paladin, or a noble rogue. Your class has nothing to do with your demeanor.

Tytalus

2011-10-12, 10:37 AM

You're assuming "oodles of spells and scrolls" that aren't a given, from what I can tell. A wizard that doesn't do anything other than blast is probably mid-Tier 4, as is a healbot cleric. Pair them with low Tier 5 builds (rogue with limited SA and no focus on UMD, S&B fighter) and the party functions right around Tier 5. The fact that a DM could give more magical gewgaws as treasure to boost the casters doesn't mean that it's a certainty, and if all the spontaneity goes toward casting CLW (since that's the only 'spontaneous casting' in a default Fighter/Wizard/Rogue/Cleric group), it doesn't amount to much of a boon.

I'm not talking about loot, and it shouldn't play an important role in a tier discussion anyway. When talking about Wizards, scrolls are pretty much a given (Scribe scroll @ lvl 1). Clerics can be healbots without memorizing a single healing spell thanks to spontaneous casting (i.e., their spell selection is not compromised by their role), so I don't see how these two can possibly be classified as T5, since (spell) versatility is hardly constrained - and that's what matters for their tier. They also have the option to adapt their spell selection depending on the campaign's/situation's demands (albeit not spontaneously).

While it seems plausible that the designers thought wizards would primarily blast, I have a hard time believing they assumed they wouldn't "do anything other than blast". The "blaster wizards" the designers allegedly assumed won't exclusively memorize blast spells - the PHB's vast array of other powerful, versatile (also: broken) spells says otherwise.

Also, I seem to remember that in 3.0, Druids didn't get spontaneous SNA.

True, but I was just talking about blaster wizards and healbot clerics.

navar100

2011-10-12, 10:51 AM

Personal anecdotes, while useful, don't bear a so great significance, 'cause situations may vary a lot between groups, DMs and adventures' styles. Exceptions exist.
The fact undeniable is that there is a huge gap in versatility and raw power between a wizard and a monk, and if the monk's player find its PC "inadequate", you cannot simply blame the DM.

I can agree on this

Exactly! That's why the Tier System is only useful in the general sense to watch out for I Win D&D at Tier 1 to I Lose D&D at Tier 5. It's a heads up, nothing more, nothing less. It does not advocate that one is a superior player for preferring a particular Tier, as I originally stated. The placement of rogue in the system only tells you are you looking for I Win or I Lose and the relative ease that could happen if you're not careful. It does not tell you never play rogues or any Tier 4 or 5 classes with Tier 1 and 2. That is a particular player's or DM's preference, not scripture of what's bad wrong fun.

Amphetryon

2011-10-12, 11:03 AM

True, but I'm not sure what that has to do with blaster wizards and healbot clerics.

It has to do with your comment about spontaneous casters. In a default, core-only party as available to the early playtesters, Sorcerer - which in the early playtest notes was used as a blaster - and Cleric - for healing - were the only uses of spontaneous casters they had to go by in judging power in actual game play.

I'm not talking about loot, and it shouldn't play an important role in a tier discussion anyway. When talking about Wizards, scrolls are pretty much a given (Scribe scroll @ lvl 1). Clerics can be healbots without memorizing a single healing spell thanks to spontaneous casting (i.e., their spell selection is not compromised by their role), so I don't see how these two can possibly be classified as T5, since (spell) versatility is hardly constrained - and that's what matters for their tier. They also have the option to adapt their spell selection depending on the campaign's/situation's demands (albeit not spontaneously).

While it seems plausible that the designers thought wizards would primarily blast, I have a hard time believing they assumed they wouldn't "do anything other than blast". The "blaster wizards" the designers allegedly assumed won't exclusively memorize blast spells - the PHB's vast array of other powerful, versatile (also: broken) spells says otherwise.
Again, I'm basing my comments on how we're told the early playtesters actually ran their characters. Clerics - theoretical powerhouses with oodles of spells outside of the role of 'party band-aid' - rarely deviated from that role at all, except for the very occasional buff to the party's S&B fighter. I'm not talking about potential given a group with decent and even understanding of the rules - the Tier System already does that - I'm talking about how the early playtesters used the game, and how the feedback from that early use shaped the designers' perceptions.

For instance, I specifically recall reading commentary a few years back from Monte Cook and Sean K. Reynolds, on another forum, to the effect that clerics and wizards got more powerful spells outside of healing and blasting simply to try to give players incentive to deviate from those niches. I would link the discussion, but it's fallen well off that particular forum's last pages. The wizards they saw, given a choice between Haste, Fireball, and Stinking Cloud, regularly chose Fireball, even if those of us who post on the forums would rarely make that same choice. The designers, therefore, did not worry that the other spells would be overpowering, because the feedback they got from the early playtests was that using the casters for something other than blasting or healing would be extremely rare. Thus, they designed around the perceived middle, rather than the perceived corner cases. The fact that the D&D aficionados who post on the forums found better, more powerful options for their casters after the game was released highlights potential issues with the playtesters' expectations and legacy baggage, as well as some design flaws, but a lot of those flaws would appear to flow from the way the early playtesters approached the system.

Basket Burner

2011-10-12, 11:17 AM

Um... if you agree that Factotum is mid Tier 3 than PF rogue isn't that far behind. Sure they are more MAD and they aren't as easy to make take off the ground, but they do get innate spells (granted 2/day, but pick the right ones and your versatility increases) and then there's all those ninja tricks added to the list. Edit: Ok it's only 1st level spells... I thought they could get 3rd level spells...

Factotum is also a bit inflated, but not as much as the others. It's definitely lower than say, Beguiler which is better in just about every way that matters.

Also you have trouble qualifying for sneak attack? You play solo? You DO need a flanking buddy or you could just use hit and run tactics (bombs away, hide, repeat) or just burn a few rogue talents to get invisibility or the like...

To get off sneak attacks, you need all of the following:

Ability to bypass immunities to precision damage. Comes from various items, Swift action wands, and so forth.
Ability to render enemies flat footed at all times. Comes from spells, spells, and more spells.
A high number of accurate attacks that you can use at all times. Getting the attacks means dual wielding, making them accurate means flasks or Wraithstrike, and getting to use them at all times means being able to full attack at all times. Which if melee means Pounce or Travel Devotion.

In 3.5, you can get these things but it's a steep uphill battle just to play the game. So Rogues are high Tier 5 for much the same reasons Fighters are. In PF there are fewer blanket immunities, but since doing either of the other two things is much harder you still come out worse overall. Low Tier 5, for the same reason Monks are.

If you are playing hit and run or shoot and hide you are not meeting the third requirement. You are coming nowhere close to meeting the third requirement. You are a Warlock but far worse. At that point you're Tier 6, except that even Commoners can contribute more than that.

A Human rogue with an INT score of 14 that adds his fav. class bonus to skills has no problems filling his skill department...

At which point you are a character who has spent 5 of their 15/20/25 build points and taken a -1 HP per level penalty in order to cover things that ultimately don't mean anything. PF skills are even worse than 3.5 skills. In other words, you've taken an already bad character, made them worse, and got nothing of value for it.

stainboy

2011-10-12, 11:50 AM

Person_Man

2011-10-12, 11:51 AM

For instance, I specifically recall reading commentary a few years back from Monte Cook and Sean K. Reynolds, on another forum, to the effect that clerics and wizards got more powerful spells outside of healing and blasting simply to try to give players incentive to deviate from those niches.

That is my recollection as well. I grew up playing 1st and 2nd edition D&D, had a hobby store in my neighborhood with tables in the back where people would play various games, and would go to a gaming convention or two during the summer whenever possible. And it was very rare to see anyone playing outside of the archetypal D&D roles that were established in the various books and novels. In particular, Clerics and Druids were considered the weakest/most boring classes, but it was basically "required" that somebody play one because having a heal-bot was considered mandatory. Everyone I knew and met felt that. (Keep in mind, this is pre-internet). So when 3.0 gave the Cleric and Druid tons of awesome new stuff, everyone I knew thought it was a great idea.

How times have changed.

Doug Lampert

2011-10-12, 11:58 AM

The DM tailors his adventure to the people playing it. Without a tracker, he finds another way to allow the players to find the right direction. Similarly, without a trapfinder, the dungeon either loses its traps, or gains traps that the whole family can disarm.

Or the DM plays from a module that doesn't care how the PCs are built.

Or the DM does what the DMG recommends! The DMG is quite clear that if PCs are good at something you shouldn't nerf that but should generally let them be good at it. Guess what! The converse applies, if the PCs suck at something then the GM should generally LET THEM SUCK AT IT. Not hold their hands and make it irrelevant!

It's fairly easy to let not having a tracker hurt the characters without ruining the adventure, you're later to the party and the foe heals, or he gets stage 1 done uninterrupted and you find out too late to do anything, or heck, the monster is encountered OUTSIDE it's lair and if you can't backtrack to the lair you completely miss on its treasure. This isn't impossible or even difficult.

Talya

2011-10-12, 12:45 PM

Or the DM plays from a module that doesn't care how the PCs are built.

Or the DM does what the DMG recommends! The DMG is quite clear that if PCs are good at something you shouldn't nerf that but should generally let them be good at it. Guess what! The converse applies, if the PCs suck at something then the GM should generally LET THEM SUCK AT IT. Not hold their hands and make it irrelevant!

It's fairly easy to let not having a tracker hurt the characters without ruining the adventure, you're later to the party and the foe heals, or he gets stage 1 done uninterrupted and you find out too late to do anything, or heck, the monster is encountered OUTSIDE it's lair and if you can't backtrack to the lair you completely miss on its treasure. This isn't impossible or even difficult.

Meh. None of the people I've ever played with have treated the game as a tactical/strategy game, and few like doing pre-made adventures. What we want is an adventure, an epic story and plot of which we are the stars. With that type of play, the DM generally tailors the challenges to what the players have available. I rather like it that way...

stainboy

2011-10-12, 12:47 PM

Or the DM plays from a module that doesn't care how the PCs are built.

Or the DM does what the DMG recommends! The DMG is quite clear that if PCs are good at something you shouldn't nerf that but should generally let them be good at it. Guess what! The converse applies, if the PCs suck at something then the GM should generally LET THEM SUCK AT IT. Not hold their hands and make it irrelevant!

It's fairly easy to let not having a tracker hurt the characters without ruining the adventure, you're later to the party and the foe heals, or he gets stage 1 done uninterrupted and you find out too late to do anything, or heck, the monster is encountered OUTSIDE it's lair and if you can't backtrack to the lair you completely miss on its treasure. This isn't impossible or even difficult.

Oh come on. It's not humanly possible to design an adventure that punishes the PCs for every marginally useful gimmick they don't have. At the level where Track might be the best way to solve a problem it's something only one out of thirty-ish classes can do. If you contrive scenarios to punish your players because no one picked Ranger, but don't punish them because none of them have Immunity to Altitude Sickness or Skill Focus (Use Rope) or any of hundreds of other gimmicks, you are playing favorites.

Basket Burner

2011-10-12, 01:24 PM

PF rogue tier stuff...

It's hard to compare 3.5 vs PF rogue because 3.5 has tons more books and that makes everything better. Can anyone demonstrate that the PF rogue is worse than the 3.5 rogue using only equivalent sources?

PF books: Player's Guide + APG + UC + UM
3.5 books: PHB + DMG + PHBII + Round 1 Completes (CAr/CAdv/CD/CW)

I do realize I'm loading this a bit by including UC, but I'm hoping for a more interesting answer than "they nerfed acid flasks!"

Acid flasks is a tiny fraction of it. There's also no Wraithstrike, no reliable means of full attacking flat footed targets, no reliable means of getting targets flat footed period...

That leaves you with one of the following:

Do damage only slightly higher than 0 because you are not getting sneak attacks.
Move around, get AoOed and then attack once, making you a worse Warlock. And that's your turn. Right next to the enemy.
Play around with sniping rules, hope the enemy has none of the many things that negate stealth (and PF doesn't have Darkstalker), and even if you succeed you're right back to being a worse Warlock.

It's a lot like the Monk. In fact one of the biggest problems of the Monk is that he cannot move and Flurry, and the PF Rogue has something very similar with its inability to get in full attack SA range and full attack SA.

And that causes him to drop from on the edge between 4-5 (Fighter like) to a low 5 (Monk like).

After all, Warlocks are 4s.

Bonus question: can anyone demonstrate that a 3.P rogue (all 3e material is available, but whenever rules differ you use the PF rule) is worse than a straight 3.5 rogue (again, all material available)?

If you allow 3.5 material they aren't quite as bad off. But they still get hit by all of the nerfs that prevent them from getting off full attack SAs, so this doesn't make any measurable difference. It does raise the question though of why you should not simply play a Beguiler. Or a Warlock, if you like the attack once for negligible thing that much.

stainboy

2011-10-12, 02:01 PM

If you allow 3.5 material they aren't quite as bad off. But they still get hit by all of the nerfs that prevent them from getting off full attack SAs, so this doesn't make any measurable difference. It does raise the question though of why you should not simply play a Beguiler. Or a Warlock, if you like the attack once for negligible thing that much.

The bolded part I'm not familiar with. What did they change?

Curmudgeon

2011-10-12, 02:37 PM

That's not the only reason its problomatic.

1. The other players being able to do nothing whilst the rogue if off making extra cash.
The other players are required to do nothing, if their characters are resting and preparing spells. That's built into the design of those spellcasting classes. If you don't want boring downtime (9 hours out of every 24), play a different class.

2. Unless the rogue share's their gains, it opens up the door for unequal distribution of treasure.
The Rogue might be accompanied by characters of other classes, along for extra earning while spellcasters are tied down with their class requirements. If so, that makes a separate group to share nighttime earnings. But whether that happens or not there's nothing in the rules about how adventuring gains should be apportioned. As such, that's always a potential area of conflict. Some players of Wizards want the party to pay for their spellbooks and special inks, for instance, or other PCs to supply a Pearl of Power for each buff spell used on them.

These issues have nothing to do with the Rogue class.

Killer Angel

2011-10-12, 03:18 PM

Exactly!
(snip)
It does not advocate that one is a superior player for preferring a particular Tier, as I originally stated.

Then, it appears we have an agreement. :smallwink:

Basket Burner

2011-10-12, 03:53 PM

The bolded part I'm not familiar with. What did they change?

Many things that previously rendered enemies flat footed now implicitly do not. That eliminates the vast majority of things that allowed for sneak attacks at all, and the few that remain do not allow full attacks either due to using up too many actions for that (moving into flanking position, feinting), not working because the action does not succeed (feinting again), or not working because you do not survive to perform the action (flanking again, you just took an AoO and are in full attack range of something as a Rogue, so your death is a foregone conclusion before you get another turn).

This is particularly noteworthy as many of those things in question came about as a result of parties supporting each other, for example the Wizard casting Grease and the Rogue going over to do his thing to them. So not only does the Rogue take a huge hit, but so does teamwork. The Wizard's fine, he can just cast something else but the hit to teamwork is quite severe.

So low tier 5. They can theoretically do all manner of things, but in practice lack the ability to perform those actions.

Killer Angel

2011-10-12, 04:03 PM

or not working because you do not survive to perform the action (flanking again, you just took an AoO and are in full attack range of something as a Rogue, so your death is a foregone conclusion before you get another turn).

Leaving aside your other points, sorry but no. If you're flanking, you could well not be the target of a full routine, and anyway the PF rogue is decisely less squishy than the 3.5 one (for a starter, the d8 dice).

JaronK

2011-10-12, 04:18 PM

Interesting claim. Source?

Check out the various playtest characters. I've also just read a lot of Skip's commentary on the game, which shows how he thought it was going to be played. The other designers too.

The Druid has Skill Focus Scimitar, because you don't use Wild Shape in combat (it sucks, you lose your gear!). Wizards are blasters, so are Sorcerers, Clerics are boring healbots. Fighters and Monks are the only ones that really worked as intended. That's just how the playtest characters were generally run, early on.

JaronK

Boci

2011-10-12, 04:24 PM

The other players are required to do nothing, if their characters are resting and preparing spells. That's built into the design of those spellcasting classes.

There are classes aside from spell caster and rogues. I know that you know this, but it really doesn't show in the above. What if the fighter wants to do some mercenary/guard work? Yay, what had been a 5 minute IRL of ingame down time now becomes 2 hours, never involving more than 1 player. You cannot expect this to be automatically accepted at every group.

If you don't want boring downtime (9 hours out of every 24), play a different class.

If you want to go on solo theiving mission play on your own without a group.

The Rogue might be accompanied by characters of other classes, along for extra earning while spellcasters are tied down with their class requirements. If so, that makes a separate group to share nighttime earnings. But whether that happens or not there's nothing in the rules about how adventuring gains should be apportioned. As such, that's always a potential area of conflict. Some players of Wizards want the party to pay for their spellbooks and special inks, for instance, or other PCs to supply a Pearl of Power for each buff spell used on them.

These issues have nothing to do with the Rogue class.

No, but the issue will be brought to the attention of the group if the rogue earns money on a solo mission whilst the casters regain spells.

Kish

2011-10-12, 04:56 PM

The DM tailors his adventure to the people playing it. Without a tracker, he finds another way to allow the players to find the right direction.

You would appear to have just slightly rephrased your sig without addressing anything I said.

Similarly, without a trapfinder, the dungeon either loses its traps, or gains traps that the whole family can disarm.
Apparently the DMs you play with are nothing like me or any I've ever met. In my experience, without a trapfinder, you'd better be prepared for pain (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0036.html).

(The traps probably won't kill you; most published traps probably won't kill you, even if every one of them hits you full-on. So, again, you're acting as though the only settings for an ability were "necessary to finish the adventure" and "useless.")

With that type of play, the DM generally tailors the challenges to what the players have available. I rather like it that way...
Then I wonder why your sig claims that one particular resource to "have available" is a bad thing to have because you expect the DM to "tailor the challenges" to it.

Curmudgeon

2011-10-12, 05:15 PM

No, but the issue will be brought to the attention of the group if the rogue earns money on a solo mission whilst the casters regain spells.
Why would you assume "the issue will be brought to the attention of the group"? Time apart from the group could be profitable (if earning extra income) or unprofitable (if spent gambling or carousing). That's an individual PC issue, not a group matter.

Basket Burner

2011-10-12, 05:16 PM

Leaving aside your other points, sorry but no. If you're flanking, you could well not be the target of a full routine, and anyway the PF rogue is decisely less squishy than the 3.5 one (for a starter, the d8 dice).

It's either you, or presumably the guy who obviously has better defenses. Rogue goes splat. If your plan depends upon the DM playing the enemies dumb, it's a bad plan.

1 HP/level is also a lot less meaningful than the other 3.5 only defenses. Especially when monsters, but not players do more damage. So he dies at about the same speed as a 3.5 Rogue, or perhaps a bit faster if he goes in full attack range. Unlike the 3.5 Rogue he has no choice about it, as his worst option is his only option.

Fax Celestis

2011-10-12, 05:17 PM

Many things that previously rendered enemies flat footed now implicitly do not.

...but they don't explicitly say they don't?

Basket Burner

2011-10-12, 05:26 PM

...but they don't explicitly say they don't?

That's the same thing. The entries read exactly like before, except that it says that they aren't flat footed, or are not eligible to be sneak attacked, or that they are only eligible to be sneak attacked if they move (except that it's 2x2 on a grid so you just move off of it or stand still if you can't and nothing happens).

Whoever wrote them went well out of their way to systematically shut down the Rogue class.

Curious

2011-10-12, 05:28 PM

Anarchy_Kanya

2011-10-12, 05:38 PM

That's the same thing. The entries read exactly like before, except that it says that they aren't flat footed, or are not eligible to be sneak attacked, or that they are only eligible to be sneak attacked if they move (except that it's 2x2 on a grid so you just move off of it or stand still if you can't and nothing happens).

Whoever wrote them went well out of their way to systematically shut down the Rogue class.
There's an online SRD for Pathfinder, so feel free to post some links that give some truth to your claims. Because all I've seen is that PF made it easier on Rogues by making more creatures sneak attack-able and consolidated skills, giving him more that he can do with his skill points.

ThiefInTheNight

2011-10-12, 05:40 PM

I haven't kept up with Pathfinder, but I can vouch that at least the beta had several rules designed to eliminate the Rogue's ability full-sneak-attack, and I've also seen comments on Paizo's forums by developers stating that they don't think Rogues should be full-sneak-attacking often.

Basket Burner

2011-10-12, 05:44 PM

:smallconfused:
I have absolutely no idea what you just tried to say.

Blink.

The spell is written exactly the same, except for two differences.

1: The PF version specifically states that when a spell does not typically affect the material plane due to blinking out at the wrong moment, it does affect the ethereal plane. The 3.5 version heavily implies this by both context and because you are on the ethereal plane for that instant but does not explicitly say it.

2: The 3.5 version says that you strike as an invisible creature, rendering enemies flat footed. The PF version specifically removes this part, and replaces it by specifically saying that targets are not considered flat footed against your attacks.

Or Grease. The difference there is that PF Grease only renders you flat footed if you move (and don't move off of it) which given what a small space it covers is entirely meaningless.

Edit: Skills were nerfed, and were never any significant factor to begin with. I haven't mentioned those much because they don't matter much.

Anarchy_Kanya

2011-10-12, 06:34 PM

Edit: Skills were nerfed, and were never any significant factor to begin with. I haven't mentioned those much because they don't matter much.
I think it's not true, because I never heard or read anything bad about PF skills, quite the contrary, actually.
And yes, they do matter, more then you think. It's what segregates the Rogue or the Factotum from the Fighter or the Paladin.

Curious

2011-10-12, 07:02 PM

Blink.

The spell is written exactly the same, except for two differences.

1: The PF version specifically states that when a spell does not typically affect the material plane due to blinking out at the wrong moment, it does affect the ethereal plane. The 3.5 version heavily implies this by both context and because you are on the ethereal plane for that instant but does not explicitly say it.

2: The 3.5 version says that you strike as an invisible creature, rendering enemies flat footed. The PF version specifically removes this part, and replaces it by specifically saying that targets are not considered flat footed against your attacks.

Or Grease. The difference there is that PF Grease only renders you flat footed if you move (and don't move off of it) which given what a small space it covers is entirely meaningless.

Edit: Skills were nerfed, and were never any significant factor to begin with. I haven't mentioned those much because they don't matter much.

Ooooh, you were talking about a spell. Alright, I thought you were talking about the sneak attack rules. Thanks for the clarification.

Hiro Protagonest

2011-10-12, 07:07 PM

Blink.

The spell is written exactly the same, except for two differences.

1: The PF version specifically states that when a spell does not typically affect the material plane due to blinking out at the wrong moment, it does affect the ethereal plane. The 3.5 version heavily implies this by both context and because you are on the ethereal plane for that instant but does not explicitly say it.

2: The 3.5 version says that you strike as an invisible creature, rendering enemies flat footed. The PF version specifically removes this part, and replaces it by specifically saying that targets are not considered flat footed against your attacks.

Or Grease. The difference there is that PF Grease only renders you flat footed if you move (and don't move off of it) which given what a small space it covers is entirely meaningless.
PF specifically targeted some of the more powerful battlefield control spells for nerfing. The rogue's not using Blink anyway.

Skills were nerfed

Uh... how? Smaller skill list? They folded some skills together, so that characters can get more skills for the same price. Then, you can invest only one skill point in a class skill for free Skill Focus, and cross-class skills no longer suck.

Boci

2011-10-12, 07:24 PM

Why would you assume "the issue will be brought to the attention of the group"? Time apart from the group could be profitable (if earning extra income) or unprofitable (if spent gambling or carousing). That's an individual PC issue, not a group matter.

Because PCs do not see time spent as a group and time spent away from the group as two completly different things, but as two parts to a whole adventure. And as soon as a player starts earning more money in one part due to their skills, well why shouldn't that be extended to other parts of the adventure.

Safety Sword

2011-10-12, 07:44 PM

Because PCs Players do not see time spent as a group and time spent away from the group as two completly different things, but as two parts to a whole adventure. And as soon as a player starts earning more money in one part due to their skills, well why shouldn't that be extended to other parts of the adventure.

Fix'd.

It doesn't matter. That's something for your group to sort out, along with your DM.

Personally, I would feel restricted if my DM told me I couldn't do other things whilst the casters were resting. Even if that is just scouting ahead or making some money, it should be my choice.

So I can't warp reality with words and a flick of the wrist. Surely I can mug old ladies and steal from the local merchants guild.

Why should my character be limited by what another character has to do to use their class features?

Boci

2011-10-12, 08:03 PM

It doesn't matter. That's something for your group to sort out, along with your DM.

I know. Therefor talking about rogues having a higher WBL as a fact is wrong.

Personally, I would feel restricted if my DM told me I couldn't do other things whilst the casters were resting. Even if that is just scouting ahead or making some money, it should be my choice.

Its not "You can't" so much as "You can, but it will be boring for the other players so please don't".

So I can't warp reality with words and a flick of the wrist. Surely I can mug old ladies and steal from the local merchants guild.

Why should my character be limited by what another character has to do to use their class features?

Because its boring for the other players. Sure ingame the time is significant, but OOC the whole party can be back to adventuring in 5 minutes if no one is doing anything major. Sometimes the party won't mind the rogue solo-ing for the bit, sometimes they will. Sometimes the fighter will join in, sometimes the fighter will also want to do something soing caster break period, thus doubling the delay before the party can resume adventuring.

Safety Sword

2011-10-12, 08:26 PM

I know. Therefor talking about rogues having a higher WBL as a fact is wrong.

Earning potential is not the same as a WBL calculation. WBL is a number useful when starting characters at higher Levels. Characters do drift from it and do in fact have different wealth in most campaigns.

Its not "You can't" so much as "You can, but it will be boring for the other players so please don't".
It's also boring for me to sit there whilst the casters change their spell lists. Or the other characters roleplay an encounter my character isn't involved with. It's a group activity.

Because its boring for the other players. Sure ingame the time is significant, but OOC the whole party can be back to adventuring in 5 minutes if no one is doing anything major. Sometimes the party won't mind the rogue solo-ing for the bit, sometimes they will. Sometimes the fighter will join in, sometimes the fighter will also want to do something soing caster break period, thus doubling the delay before the party can resume adventuring.

As I said, it's for your group to work out. If the DM says "We don't split the party. Ever." then it's just a matter of whether I want to play that way or not.

Elric VIII

2011-10-12, 08:38 PM

What happens when the casters start wanting to sell spellcasting services? I have a feeling that, unless the rogue is stealing from nobles/wealthy guilds/something that can afford powerful defenses, that this will end up benefitting the casters.

Plus, there is also the issue of availability. Have you taken a look at NPC WBL? Unless the rogue absconds with an equivalent CR (adjusted for 1 character, rather than 4) NPC's entire collection of goods, it may not be as profitable as it is assumed.

Although, I would like to see a rogue/caster party that has the rogues stealing/working to finnance the casters' crafting for the party. Talk about effective use of downtime.

Boci

2011-10-12, 09:43 PM

Earning potential is not the same as a WBL calculation. WBL is a number useful when starting characters at higher Levels. Characters do drift from it and do in fact have different wealth in most campaigns.

Okay, so I used the wrong word. Its still wrong to assume the rogue will have more money.

It's also boring for me to sit there whilst the casters change their spell lists. Or the other characters roleplay an encounter my character isn't involved with. It's a group activity.

Both of the above are a lot more important to the story however. Unfair comparison.

As I said, it's for your group to work out. If the DM says "We don't split the party. Ever." then it's just a matter of whether I want to play that way or not.

Never said that would be the case. Could be "we don't split the party unless its needed for the stroy. You wishing to earn some extra cash is not vital".

hex0

2011-10-12, 09:51 PM

Never said that would be the case. Could be "we don't split the party unless its needed for the stroy. You wishing to earn some extra cash is not vital".

[MR.T]Take ranks in Profession, fool![/MR.T]

Kenneth

2011-10-12, 11:16 PM

I love how this thread conisted of people making fun of me becuase i spelt rogue incorrectly. so much so that a moderator actually edited the title his/herself.

then 2ndly everybody said what was wrong ( and by wrong i mean what kept it at 'tier' 4 and not 'tier' 3)

then i think about 3 pages or so bcame about how a rogue could sneak off and earn extra money and the argument therein, which in my mind, went completely off topic.

what I failed to find at any point in here, was a suggestion on how to bump the rogue up to 'tier' 3

of course there was the whole 'give them spells!' arguemnt but then.. thats not really a rogue as much as some type of hubrid, also the psychic rouge is again not really a rogue but some sort of psionic mind blasty mind whatever rogue.

I was hoping that like in the similar post i made about rangers there would be some actual advice on this matter.

I do loved how a few of the people making fun of my mispellings misspelled words of their own though.

Curmudgeon

2011-10-12, 11:45 PM

then i think about 3 pages or so bcame about how a rogue could sneak off and earn extra money and the argument therein, which in my mind, went completely off topic.

what I failed to find at any point in here, was a suggestion on how to bump the rogue up to 'tier' 3
You missed the whole point, then: more money makes a character stronger/more versatile (with better gear), which can fix the problem. If the Rogue can carry wands or other items that will let them do one thing (sneak attack) better/more often, and also do many things fairly well ─ that's exactly the definition of Tier 3 capability.

Safety Sword

2011-10-12, 11:51 PM

You missed the whole point, then: more money makes a character stronger/more versatile (with better gear), which can fix the problem. If the Rogue can carry wands or other items that will let them do one thing (sneak attack) better/more often, and also do many things fairly well ─ that's exactly the definition of Tier 3 capability.

Damned rogue...er ... ninja

JaronK

2011-10-12, 11:57 PM

Kenneth

2011-10-13, 12:13 AM

@ Cormudgeon
yes but any character going out on their own and making more money is something literally ANY character can do, except of course those with vow of poverty. so teh point is moot, you guys are touting it like the rouge is the only class in the entirety of D&D that can make money on its own, that is rather a ludicrous thought I do believe.

@jaronk
also I am pretty sure that the Warblade does not have a kick down the dorr monopoly. unless of course when WoTC made the ToB they only added in 'kicking in the door' as an ability for the warlbade that had never been publish in any works to come before.

@ cormudgeon pt 2.
yeah can't rogues already use wands and such to make themselves more versatile.. so therein as per my original thought.. would that versatility enable them to be 'tier' 3?

SO, what I get from this is enabling rogue to sneak attack everything is the only thing that would make them 'tier' 3?

Curmudgeon

2011-10-13, 12:25 AM

@ Cormudgeon
yes but any character going out on their own and making more money is something literally ANY character can do, except of course those with vow of poverty. so teh point is moot
Any character can; Rogues are just better at doing so. That's in the opening paragraph of the class description.

yeah can't rogues already use wands and such to make themselves more versatile.. so therein as per my original thought.. would that versatility enable them to be 'tier' 3?
Yes, they can use wands. But first they need to get the wands and wealth makes that possible. Just connect the dots.

JaronK

2011-10-13, 12:36 AM

@jaronk
also I am pretty sure that the Warblade does not have a kick down the dorr monopoly. unless of course when WoTC made the ToB they only added in 'kicking in the door' as an ability for the warlbade that had never been publish in any works to come before.

Of course not. Crusaders and Swordsages can ignore hardness too, and Barbarians as well as other heavy hitters can just do enough damage to break things down. But Rogues are supposed to be able to sneakily open locks... the fact that Arcane Lock can only be beaten (in the case of a non magic character) by smashing the door down is silly. Level 10 infiltration experts should be capable of opening a door locked by a level 3 Wizard, and they should be able to do it silently.

@ cormudgeon pt 2.
yeah can't rogues already use wands and such to make themselves more versatile.. so therein as per my original thought.. would that versatility enable them to be 'tier' 3?

Tier 4 means the campaign world has to work with you for you to be solid. Tier 3 means the DM can just do whatever fits and the character will be fine (within reason). So yes, a Rogue can use wands... if the DM hands them wands. But what if it's something like World's Largest Dungeon where you can't just go shopping all the time? Let's face it, every character is strong when they can have whatever they want whenever they want it.

SO, what I get from this is enabling rogue to sneak attack everything is the only thing that would make them 'tier' 3?

That would just mean they wouldn't randomly useless in a bunch of sorts of fights. That's not the only issue.

And no, Rogues aren't better at making money by themselves. Wizards can just create wealth outright (buy cows, Flesh to Salt them, sell salt. Cast Wall of Iron, cast Fabricate with Magecraft, sell your brand new Fullplate. And so on). Sorcerers can too if they have the right money. Lots of casters can do things like this. I don't know why so many people think Rogues are good at this when Wizards can RAW just sell their spells for tons of money.

JaronK

Curmudgeon

2011-10-13, 02:26 AM

Wizards can just create wealth outright (buy cows, Flesh to Salt them, sell salt. Cast Wall of Iron, cast Fabricate with Magecraft, sell your brand new Fullplate. And so on). ... I don't know why so many people think Rogues are good at this when Wizards can RAW just sell their spells for tons of money.
The difference is that by creating/altering commodity items, the Wizard will rapidly change the market prices to the point where their spellcasting labor will be valued on the same order as miners or farmers. Rogues just move money around (in their favor) without changing market dynamics.

In practice, the only time I've seen a spellcaster try this (using Flesh to Salt), the DM had people get sick from the result (which had the consistency of rock salt, but not the purity), and the Wizard was jailed as a poisoner. Since nobody died the Wizard only served 30 days, but their spellbook was burned as a danger to public safety.

I thought that was an appropriate DM reaction.

Zaq

2011-10-13, 02:33 AM

The difference is that by creating/altering commodity items, the Wizard will rapidly change the market prices to the point where their spellcasting labor will be valued on the same order as miners or farmers. Rogues just move money around (in their favor) without changing market dynamics.

In practice, the only time I've seen a spellcaster try this (using Flesh to Salt), the DM had people get sick from the result (which had the consistency of rock salt, but not the purity), and the Wizard was jailed as a poisoner. Since nobody died the Wizard only served 30 days, but their spellbook was burned as a danger to public safety.

I thought that was an appropriate DM reaction.

That's surprisingly un-RAW of you. Market saturation is a perfectly reasonable GM response to Flesh to Salt tricks (and it's one I'd do, under the circumstances), but that's not actually what the rules say happens. The rules DO say that salt is a trade good valued at 5 GP per pound. Do your adventurers also flood the gold market when they try to cash in that hoard they looted?

stainboy

2011-10-13, 04:13 AM

The price tables are just an abstraction to speed conflict-less interactions with NPCs, just like overland movement is an abstraction to speed several thousand move actions. The DM can always roleplay out the sale and say the NPC doesn't want your twenty tons of salt. If he had the money on hand you could Suggestion him to buy your salt, but you could also Suggestion him to just give you his money.

Rising Phoenix

2011-10-13, 05:06 AM

It's either you, or presumably the guy who obviously has better defenses. Rogue goes splat. If your plan depends upon the DM playing the enemies dumb, it's a bad plan.

1 HP/level is also a lot less meaningful than the other 3.5 only defenses. Especially when monsters, but not players do more damage. So he dies at about the same speed as a 3.5 Rogue, or perhaps a bit faster if he goes in full attack range. Unlike the 3.5 Rogue he has no choice about it, as his worst option is his only option.

I think it all comes down to our tables. I've never been afraid of rogues dying quickly in my games (or when I am DMing). Leave the fighter to take care of the tough brutes while I pick of the weaklings.

Not all enemies should be played intelligently and not all should be brutes that squish you if they touch you. Sure you should never let a Dragon full attack you... but his kobold mooks? They're fair game if you want to Swiss cheese something

Killer Angel

2011-10-13, 07:14 AM

It's either you, or presumably the guy who obviously has better defenses. Rogue goes splat. If your plan depends upon the DM playing the enemies dumb, it's a bad plan.

If the rogues' flanker is a summoned mook, the enemy will target the rogue. If the flanker is a ragin barbarian, guess who's the one that'll be attacked?
It depends on the enemy, on the circumstances, and so on.
It's a gross simplification to assume that the rogue will be almost automatically the target for full attack if it dares to enter in melee.

Especially when monsters, but not players do more damage.

:smallconfused:
Power Attack is nerfed also for monster, and I don't recall monsters that do so much additional basic damage from the 3.5 version.
And again, the rogue received a huge boost in the skills department.

Basket Burner

2011-10-13, 07:28 AM

I think it's not true, because I never heard or read anything bad about PF skills, quite the contrary, actually.
And yes, they do matter, more then you think. It's what segregates the Rogue or the Factotum from the Fighter or the Paladin.

You must not look at optimization boards very often then. It is extremely common knowledge. DC 10, if you will.

Ooooh, you were talking about a spell. Alright, I thought you were talking about the sneak attack rules. Thanks for the clarification.

My original point was this:

To get off sneak attacks, you need all of the following:

Ability to bypass immunities to precision damage. Comes from various items, Swift action wands, and so forth.
Ability to render enemies flat footed at all times. Comes from spells, spells, and more spells.
A high number of accurate attacks that you can use at all times. Getting the attacks means dual wielding, making them accurate means flasks or Wraithstrike, and getting to use them at all times means being able to full attack at all times. Which if melee means Pounce or Travel Devotion.

Pointing out that the loss of a spell translates to a loss of sneak attack is simply a continuation of those same principles.

PF specifically targeted some of the more powerful battlefield control spells for nerfing. The rogue's not using Blink anyway.

Save or loses were not nerfed in any meaningful manner for the most part. Teamwork however was. And how is he not using Blink?

Uh... how? Smaller skill list? They folded some skills together, so that characters can get more skills for the same price. Then, you can invest only one skill point in a class skill for free Skill Focus, and cross-class skills no longer suck.

There is no meaningful difference between getting 1 point per level and a +3 bonus on anything you have at least 1 point in and getting 1 point per level +3 at first level. In either case, you get the same numbers.

Skills were nerfed because either the effect of the skill was nerfed, the success rate of the skill was nerfed, or both. And skills were not very useful to begin with. You can already make 3.5 characters that entirely forget to assign skill points and never even notice, so why would you make them even more forgettable and meaningless?

You could argue that going from having a skill at x - 3 is better than having a skill at x - 11 or so but at the levels at which the vast majority of play takes place it makes far less of a difference. More to the point if skills at x are not useful, then why would they be worth anything when 3 points lower? It would be more accurate to say cross class skills don't suck that much more, but since skills are not going to matter regardless it's an entirely moot point.

I think it all comes down to our tables. I've never been afraid of rogues dying quickly in my games (or when I am DMing). Leave the fighter to take care of the tough brutes while I pick of the weaklings.

Not all enemies should be played intelligently and not all should be brutes that squish you if they touch you. Sure you should never let a Dragon full attack you... but his kobold mooks? They're fair game if you want to Swiss cheese something

There are two types of enemies: Melee brutes, and casters. You're not going to touch the latter, especially not in PF. That leaves you to trade full attacks with something that is likely better at full attacking than you are.

Kobold mooks can and do swarm as their favored tactic. And while their individual damage will be low, he's still not going to last long under focused fire. Of course, if you have to focus on the foes that are practically meaningless, it is a good sign that your character is not up to par.

If the rogues' flanker is a summoned mook, the enemy will target the rogue. If the flanker is a ragin barbarian, guess who's the one that'll be attacked?
It depends on the enemy, on the circumstances, and so on.
It's a gross simplification to assume that the rogue will be almost automatically the target for full attack if it dares to enter in melee.

Also the Rogue, because the Rogue will die, and the Barbarian will not die. Which means that the enemy can both fight the Rogue and the Barbarian, or he can fight just the Barbarian after killing the Rogue.

Even if you want to try and argue that enemies will ignore the incredibly squishy and tempting target that just walked into their instant death radius, every time they don't, you get a dead Rogue. It doesn't take very many times of that before everyone involved realizes it is a bad idea.

If it is a summoned mook though it could probably pop both of them, starting with the mook. Even if the Rogue survives at low HP, he's not escaping, he's not getting healed (as he is on the other side of the enemy), and the flank's gone so he's back to being entirely helpless.

:smallconfused:
Power Attack is nerfed also for monster, and I don't recall monsters that do so much additional basic damage from the 3.5 version.
And again, the rogue received a huge boost in the skills department.

Skills are meaningless in PF. PA is not nerfed for monsters. It is actually buffed for monsters.

Players need to full PA to get their damage up to par. They can't do that anymore, so PA is nerfed for them.
Monsters can PA for a few points and still hit 95% of the time, but they can't PA for full and still hit reliably, nor do they need to to get their damage up to par. PA is buffed for them, because the rate of PA returns they get on the amount they do PA for is higher. In other words, they do as they'd normally do and get better results.

Psyren

2011-10-13, 07:52 AM

How to make a Rogue T3:

1) Sneak Attack should work on everything, without requiring special items. That way you don't have Rogues just becoming useless against Oozes, Undead, Elementals, Plants, Constructs, and so on.

2) Rogues should be durable enough in combat that they don't die instantly if something decides to target them. As it stands, a lot of time the reason many Rogues don't die is that DMs choose not to target them.

3) Skills should have some way of dealing with stuff like Arcane Lock (Open Lock simply fails), Mindsight, and so on, so that when a Rogue's doing his thing he's actually good at it as opposed to having automatic counters (and as opposed to a Warblade kicking open a door being more reliable than open lock for dealing with a basic second level spell).

That's the basics, anyway.

JaronK

Which leads me to why I think the PF Rogue is T3:

1) Sneak Attack doesn't quite work on everything, but does work on far more critters than 3.5. Of the creatures mentioned, only Elementals, Oozes and Incorporeal undead remain immune. (And you can get the latter if you use a ghost touch weapon.)

2) Rogues were bumped up to d8, and also get fighter feats more quickly. There are archetypes that increase their durability as well.

3) Rogue-hosing spells like arcane lock have been altered - the skill check is more difficult, but does not autofail.

Killer Angel

2011-10-13, 08:28 AM

I love how this thread conisted of people making fun of me becuase i spelt rogue incorrectly.

Of course the occasional typo is understood and expected, but you also should consider that the mistake rogue-rouge is well known (see the comic linked in the previous pages) and funny to make joke on it, 'specially when you didn't read over the title of the thread before posting it. :smallsmile:

Even if you want to try and argue that enemies will ignore the incredibly squishy and tempting target that just walked into their instant death radius, every time they don't, you get a dead Rogue. It doesn't take very many times of that before everyone involved realizes it is a bad idea.

I want to argue that enemies usually try to eliminate the most dangerous opponent, rather than the apparently squishy one. Losing a couple of rounds killing the rogue, while the barbarian full attack you (or the druid summon allies), is not a good idea.

Curious

2011-10-13, 08:35 AM

navar100

2011-10-13, 09:31 AM

Basket Burner

2011-10-13, 10:01 AM

Which leads me to why I think the PF Rogue is T3:

1) Sneak Attack doesn't quite work on everything, but does work on far more critters than 3.5. Of the creatures mentioned, only Elementals, Oozes and Incorporeal undead remain immune. (And you can get the latter if you use a ghost touch weapon.)

Gravestrike (also gets incorporeals), Golemstrike, Vinestrike. Not needing those anymore would be a bonus, except that they lose out in worse ways.

2) Rogues were bumped up to d8, and also get fighter feats more quickly. There are archetypes that increase their durability as well.

Gaining 1 HP/level when enemies do more damage is at best breaking even.

3) Rogue-hosing spells like arcane lock have been altered - the skill check is more difficult, but does not autofail.

Open Lock DCs are so high that even without Arcane Lock he's going to have an incredibly hard time getting anywhere. With it... what level do you have to be able to reliably make DC 50 checks? Because when a level 3 character spends 175 gold, that is the DC you will be facing. It's not strictly speaking an auto fail but for all practical purposes he's never going to bypass the lock by picking it until long after it has ceased to be level appropriate. Even if you go well out of your way, nerfing every other aspect of your character just to try to get the DC 50 lock when you could simply smash the door with damage in two hits at most.

I want to argue that enemies usually try to eliminate the most dangerous opponent, rather than the apparently squishy one. Losing a couple of rounds killing the rogue, while the barbarian full attack you (or the druid summon allies), is not a good idea.

A Rogue that can full attack sneak attack does decent damage. Not great, but decent. So the enemy's choice is to either attack the person that will not die, or attack the person that will die. So he will go squish the Rogue in one round, and that buys him some time to two round the Barbarian. It's much better than attacking the Barbarian, not taking him out, and having them both hit you.

In addition, they are also better at being skill monkeys due to the new skill system, since cross-class skills no longer require 2 to 1 ranks, and you can put a single rank into a class skill for the same effect as putting 4 into it would get you in 3.5. Their skill points go a lot further.

There is no meaningful difference between getting 4 points at 1st level and getting 1 point that counts as 4 points at first level. In either case, you get +4 to something.

Rising Phoenix

2011-10-13, 10:10 AM

Gravestrike (also gets incorporeals), Golemstrike, Vinestrike. Not needing those anymore would be a bonus, except that they lose out in worse ways.

Gaining 1 HP/level when enemies do more damage is at best breaking even.

Open Lock DCs are so high that even without Arcane Lock he's going to have an incredibly hard time getting anywhere. With it... what level do you have to be able to reliably make DC 50 checks? Because when a level 3 character spends 175 gold, that is the DC you will be facing. It's not strictly speaking an auto fail but for all practical purposes he's never going to bypass the lock by picking it until long after it has ceased to be level appropriate. Even if you go well out of your way, nerfing every other aspect of your character just to try to get the DC 50 lock when you could simply smash the door with damage in two hits at most.

A Rogue that can full attack sneak attack does decent damage. Not great, but decent. So the enemy's choice is to either attack the person that will not die, or attack the person that will die. So he will go squish the Rogue in one round, and that buys him some time to two round the Barbarian. It's much better than attacking the Barbarian, not taking him out, and having them both hit you.

There is no meaningful difference between getting 4 points at 1st level and getting 1 point that counts as 4 points at first level. In either case, you get +4 to something.

In conclusion: Let's agree to disagree. Moving on.:smallsmile:

Killer Angel

2011-10-13, 10:24 AM

A Rogue that can full attack sneak attack does decent damage. Not great, but decent. So the enemy's choice is to either attack the person that will not die, or attack the person that will die. So he will go squish the Rogue in one round, and that buys him some time to two round the Barbarian. It's much better than attacking the Barbarian, not taking him out, and having them both hit you.

Your PoV.
I could argue that you can lose 1 round in the hope of taking down the rogue, while the main danger does tons of damages in full routine; when you'll face the barbarian it will still be at full health.
If you kill first the barbarian, suddenly the rogue will lose the flanker for it's SA.

(BTW: this is going off topic: can we agree to disagree? after all, the rogue will remain on its tier, regardless yours -or mine- opinion)

EDIT:

In conclusion: Let's agree to disagree. Moving on.:smallsmile:
You, sneaky rogue-ninja!

Curious

2011-10-13, 10:45 AM

There is no meaningful difference between getting 4 points at 1st level and getting 1 point that counts as 4 points at first level. In either case, you get +4 to something.

Actually, there is, seeing as you only gain the x4 bonus at first level in 3.5, while even if you don't have any points at all in a skill at say, fourth level, if you put a point into the skill you'll still get the bonus. Combined with the consolidation of the skill list, that means the Rogue has effectively gained a whole boatload of skills.

Tytalus

2011-10-13, 10:59 AM

Again, I'm basing my comments on how we're told the early playtesters actually ran their characters.

[...]

For instance, I specifically recall reading commentary a few years back from Monte Cook and Sean K. Reynolds, on another forum, to the effect that clerics and wizards got more powerful spells outside of healing and blasting simply to try to give players incentive to deviate from those niches. I would link the discussion, but it's fallen well off that particular forum's last pages. The wizards they saw, given a choice between Haste, Fireball, and Stinking Cloud, regularly chose Fireball, even if those of us who post on the forums would rarely make that same choice. The designers, therefore, did not worry that the other spells would be overpowering, because the feedback they got from the early playtests was that using the casters for something other than blasting or healing would be extremely rare. Thus, they designed around the perceived middle, rather than the perceived corner cases. The fact that the D&D aficionados who post on the forums found better, more powerful options for their casters after the game was released highlights potential issues with the playtesters' expectations and legacy baggage, as well as some design flaws, but a lot of those flaws would appear to flow from the way the early playtesters approached the system.

That's is very interesting, but I'd actually like to read it for myself, which is why I asked for the source (as in: link to or other pointer).

On the net information about what people read somewhere (or read that other people read) tends to get diluted over time. Not to imply it's the case here, but I've seen people claim all sorts of (wrong) things about what the designers thought/wanted/etc..

Check out the various playtest characters. I've also just read a lot of Skip's commentary on the game, which shows how he thought it was going to be played. The other designers too.

Could you please point me to those characters and/or Skip's notes?

Amphetryon

2011-10-13, 11:05 AM

That's is very interesting, but I'd actually like to read it for myself, which is why I asked for the source (as in: link to or other pointer).

On the net information about what people read somewhere (or read that other people read) tends to get diluted over time. Not to imply it's the case here, but I've seen people claim all sorts of (wrong) things about what the designers thought/wanted/etc..

Could you please point me to those characters and/or Skip's notes?
Given that Person_Man, JaronK, and I have all cited similar commentary, it sounds to me like Google is your friend here.

Hiro Protagonest

2011-10-13, 11:31 AM

Skills were nerfed because either the effect of the skill was nerfed, the success rate of the skill was nerfed, or both.

Where? I don't see any increase in DC for any skill skill, or a lower success rate either.

Fax Celestis

2011-10-13, 11:42 AM

Can we all just agree that the rogue is in a nebulous position hovering around "four-ish" and none of us are going to convince the others? :smallsigh:

Basket Burner

2011-10-13, 11:50 AM

Your PoV.
I could argue that you can lose 1 round in the hope of taking down the rogue, while the main danger does tons of damages in full routine; when you'll face the barbarian it will still be at full health.
If you kill first the barbarian, suddenly the rogue will lose the flanker for it's SA.

(BTW: this is going off topic: can we agree to disagree? after all, the rogue will remain on its tier, regardless yours -or mine- opinion)

The Rogue has low HP, and is hit 95% of the time with PA on.
The Barbarian is also hit 95% of the time with PA on but has high HP.

Killing the Rogue is easy, especially since he took an AoO just closing in. Doing it in one round is also easy. The Barbarian is not dying in one round. He has too many HP for that. The choice is between getting attacked by two people and getting attacked by one. One of these is clearly better than the other.

You are welcome to forfeit the argument at any time, but that will not change the fact that the only reason why the Rogue (3.5 or PF) is placed as high as they are is because skills are being overvalued. Much as the designers of the game overvalued anything with a full BAB progression. It will also not change the fact that the PF Rogue is measurably worse than its 3.5 counterpart in a number of key ways, leading to them going from being Fighter like to Monk like in their functioning.

Actually, there is, seeing as you only gain the x4 bonus at first level in 3.5, while even if you don't have any points at all in a skill at say, fourth level, if you put a point into the skill you'll still get the bonus. Combined with the consolidation of the skill list, that means the Rogue has effectively gained a whole boatload of skills.

You cannot do anything significant with skills that are maxed for the level. So why then would low level skills be useful?

As for the stuff about SKR and Wizards and Clerics: It's true. I don't have the links but I've seen the same things. If you would like to see the playtester's characters get a hold of a copy of Enemies and Allies, there are level 5, 10, and 15 versions of all 12(?) of them.

Where? I don't see any increase in DC for any skill skill, or a lower success rate either.

Sticking to the most meaningful skills only:

Perception: Enemies on average have about 2 or 3 higher Stealth than they otherwise had, making it harder to detect sneaking enemies. Far more enemies also have Stealth investment due to the skill changes. You are less able of noticing enemies sneaking up on you without abilities that defeat stealth, and those aren't as available to players anymore.

Diplomacy: Effect drastically reduced, to the point where it practically does nothing even if it works.

Tumble: Went from being DC 15, to a DC that is almost certainly far higher than 15.

Use Magic Device: I don't think this one was directly nerfed. However this one is there for scrolls, wands, and staves. Scrolls are too overpriced though, so that just leaves wands and staves. Wands have minimum DCs and minimum CLs unless you pay more for a higher CL. That severely limits the sort of spells that would be useful in wand form. So you are looking at shaking CLW sticks around, swift action buffs such as Wraithstrike, utility effects such as Benign Transposition... In other words, only those spells that are DC independent and at least mostly independent of CL. Aside from the first though, none of those exist in PF at all. And it's not really worth much to get one more CLW stick shaker. As for staves, they do use your stats but those are still going to be low and the staff itself is too expensive to be worth it. So while not directly nerfed, there's so very little worth doing with it still that even it hardly matters.

Edit: Nah. 3.5 Rogue is high 5, PF Rogue is low 5.

Psyren

2011-10-13, 11:57 AM

Edit: Nah. 3.5 Rogue is high 5, PF Rogue is low 5.

Not a ghost's chance of us seeing eye-to-eye then if that's your conclusion. *shrug*

Killer Angel

2011-10-13, 12:05 PM

Not a ghost's chance of us seeing eye-to-eye then if that's your conclusion. *shrug*

After all, I also remember peoples pretending that the monk is better than the wizard... :smallamused:

Psyren

2011-10-13, 12:11 PM

After all, I also remember peoples pretending that the monk is better than the wizard... :smallamused:

I avoided arguing with those folks as well :smalltongue: if I'm going to get an infraction, I'd rather it be for a topic I care about.

Basket Burner

2011-10-13, 01:09 PM

After all, I also remember peoples pretending that the monk is better than the wizard... :smallamused:

Claiming that Monks are better than Wizards is something based on a foolish argument or no argument at all. Claiming that skills are not very good, or that sneak attack is not very good, or that PF Rogues are worse than 3.5 Rogues are all measurable and are conclusions that follow the evidence presented.

But then, you have stopped providing arguments entirely and instead tried to drop the matter. Which is fine, but don't act as if you are in the right when you are unwilling to defend your points.

Psyren

2011-10-13, 01:44 PM

The fact that you consider rogues (from both systems, no less) to be T5 means there's no point trying to defend anything to you. I refuse to be baited.

Basket Burner

2011-10-13, 02:00 PM

Baited? Are you a Rogue? Because calling a class weak is not a personal attack.

JaronK

2011-10-13, 02:09 PM

Could you please point me to those characters and/or Skip's notes?

I can get you started, but it's a LOT of material. But I can at least show you the characters. You'll probably recognize them, as they're in a lot of books. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_iconic_characters

Barbarian: Krusk (half-orc male)
Bard: Gimble (gnome male), Devis (half-elf male)
Cleric: Jozan (human male cleric of Pelor), Eberk (dwarf male cleric of Moradin)
Druid: Vadania (half-elf female)
Fighter: Tordek (Dwarf male), Regdar (Human male)
Monk: Ember (human female)
Paladin: Alhandra (human female)
Ranger: Soveliss (elf male)
Rogue: Lidda (halfling female), Kerwyn (human male)
Sorcerer: Hennet (human male)
Wizard: Mialee (elf female), Naull (human female), Nebin (gnome male illusionist), Aramil (elf male)

Note as it says that these were the playtest characters.

Here's one listing of some of their feats and such (note they were played at a few levels, but weren't really played above level 10 in testing):

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/gs/20020217b

Note the Druid with Weapon Focus Scimitar, as well as the lack of Natural Spell. For the others, just search for their names, and make sure you're getting them from an older source if you want to know what they were during playtest times. Note that D&D miniatures had cards that had the stats of the various iconic characters (the playtest characters) on the back for use in normal games. For example, here's Ember's: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/minigen/cards/Ha/04R.jpg

Those should be accurate to what they were during playtest. Also, they're all stated out in Enemies and Allies, at levels 5, 10, and 15. That's a 3.0 book of course.

As for Skip and Monty Cook's commentary, well, just do some online searches, and read up on the various "Classes With Class" articles on the website (Skip wrote those). That should show you the mentality... there's a lot out there.

Hope that's enough to get you started.

JaronK

Kenneth

2011-10-13, 11:00 PM

Ok.. so now can we please get back on target and put forth various ideas onw hat it will take to bump the rogue up to 'tier' 3, besides making sneak attack apply to any and everything in existance?

JaronK

2011-10-13, 11:50 PM

Ok.. so now can we please get back on target and put forth various ideas onw hat it will take to bump the rogue up to 'tier' 3, besides making sneak attack apply to any and everything in existance?

As stated, skills need to actually work at higher levels effectively. Arcane Lock shouldn't completely kill off a Rogue's ability to use Open Lock, for example. Something like the ability to use Disable Device to dispel spells or something would get into the ballpark. Darkstalker shouldn't be a feat, it should be something you simply get at sufficient level... a master thief shouldn't be auto detected by everything at high levels. Basically, a Rogue's skills shouldn't be auto countered by magic. Casters have lots of options, Rogues have only a few things they're good at. They should be good at those things.

And Rogues need to be defensively strong enough to survive at high levels... right now at high levels, it's usually just the DM being nice that doesn't instant kill Rogues. With d6 HD, one good save, light armor only, and almost no significant defensive abilities (Evasion is nice, but not enough by itself) Rogues are actually one of the most fragile classes in existence. That's a bit much. No, giving them d8 and boosting the damage of monsters (as Pathfinder did) won't cut it. I think the Rokugan Ninja was on the right track with their targeted dodge bonus to AC, though it didn't go far enough.

JaronK

Gwendol

2011-10-14, 01:52 AM

Agreed. A level-scaled dodge bonus, feint as a free action (it's a skill trick IIRC), and some means to counter magic (locks, traps, and the likes) would go a long way. The other route is of course to make archery suck less, since one of the best ways for a rogue to stay alive is to keep a healthy distance between himself and anything dangerous.

JaronK

2011-10-14, 01:54 AM

Making archery suck less would require the Rogue being more easily able to trigger sneak attack at range. Not saying that's a bad thing, just something to consider. With that said, Rogues should be able to melee... the assassin sneaking up from behind and slitting someone's throat is a concept Rogues should be able to do.

JaronK

Killer Angel

2011-10-14, 02:01 AM

Claiming that Monks are better than Wizards is something based on a foolish argument or no argument at all. Claiming that skills are not very good, or that sneak attack is not very good, or that PF Rogues are worse than 3.5 Rogues are all measurable and are conclusions that follow the evidence presented.

But then, you have stopped providing arguments entirely and instead tried to drop the matter. Which is fine, but don't act as if you are in the right when you are unwilling to defend your points.

When the great majority of the comminity (based on years of playing and shared knowledges from very expert players) agrees that rogue are T4, and they improved with PF, and you insist that they're both T5, it's you the one defending a point.
Which, IMO, it's similar to pretend that Monks are better than wizard, argumenting endlessly and presenting builds based on heavy use of UMD.
Your arguments are certainly less foolish, but still they're based on a personal delusion. Which is fine: mine is that Fighter and Barbarian 3.5 are on par.

EDIT: this is the reason why Psyren and I are dropping the matter: I greatly appreciate that the debate remained civil, and I've nothing against you, but we see the thing in different ways and we won't change our minds, so there's really no point in the discussion. I'm not unwilling to defend my points 'cause i fear you arguments: I'm unwilling to defend my points cause I'm losing interest in a pointless debate. As said before, it's better "agree to disagree".

JaronK

2011-10-14, 02:29 AM

T4-T5 is only a one tier difference... it's within the margin of error. Some folks insist Rogues are T3 too, and I've seen some insist on T2. It really has to do more with individual experience and play style.

Though claiming that Rogues are in the same boat as Ninjas and Experts is a bit odd.

JaronK

Basket Burner

2011-10-14, 07:24 AM

Ok.. so now can we please get back on target and put forth various ideas onw hat it will take to bump the rogue up to 'tier' 3, besides making sneak attack apply to any and everything in existance?

Aside from being able to full attack sneak attack everything, all the time and something else significant there isn't any way.

When the great majority of the comminity (based on years of playing and shared knowledges from very expert players) agrees that rogue are T4, and they improved with PF, and you insist that they're both T5, it's you the one defending a point.
Which, IMO, it's similar to pretend that Monks are better than wizard, argumenting endlessly and presenting builds based on heavy use of UMD.
Your arguments are certainly less foolish, but still they're based on a personal delusion. Which is fine: mine is that Fighter and Barbarian 3.5 are on par.

The maker of the tier system demonstrably overvalues skills both here and elsewhere. It reflects in his judgments.

Most people, even in optimizer communities do not think for themselves. They simply take the words of the big name people at face value without thinking critically about it. I'm not picking on Jaron here, as it is true of anyone. Not just him. People see someone like Jaron, or Lycan, or Sinfire say something and they simply take it at face value. Problem is, the big names can be wrong too. It just happens less often.

Most of the people claiming that they are better in PF have absolutely no argument to support this. They can only hastily attempt to drop the subject. Jaron is also right there saying they are not really better in PF, so I guess that theory's shot. Aside from his overvaluing of skills he is even saying mostly the same things as I am.

Comparing me to Giacomo is highly insulting and offensive. There is nothing close to a comparison here. Giacomo's arguments break down to the slightest bit of critical thought. Mine come from critical thought. The arguments about Rogues are good because skills break down when exposed to critical thought. Even the guy who overvalues them is admitting they need to do more to be a real factor.

Nothing delusional about it. Rogues have a bunch of things that don't work so well, and then some damage that doesn't work as well as a simple charger.

EDIT: this is the reason why Psyren and I are dropping the matter: I greatly appreciate that the debate remained civil, and I've nothing against you, but we see the thing in different ways and we won't change our minds, so there's really no point in the discussion. I'm not unwilling to defend my points 'cause i fear you arguments: I'm unwilling to defend my points cause I'm losing interest in a pointless debate. As said before, it's better "agree to disagree".

Once again, you are welcome to bow out at any time, but don't act as if you are winning when you tapped out before things even began.

And Jaron, my argument regarding that was that skills were being overrated. The only reason Rogues were in 4 is because they were better than Ninjas and Experts, which were in 5.

And skills being in the E6 bin - that is to say you use them for a the first few levels, and then they stop mattering is only part of the problem. The other part is very high DCs.

A level 3 character gets a 150 gold lock, and then casts Arcane Lock on it.
3.5: DC Impossible. You can still get past the door of course, but not by picking the lock.
PF: DC 50. Technically pickable, but in practice you will never be able to do so until long after it has stopped mattering, and you will find another way past the door.

175 gold to shut down lockpicking outright. And even without Arcane Lock he's still not breaking DC 40 for a very long time (well past level 3).

Traps? All of the traps that matter have Search and Disable DCs of 24 + CR. So if you are level 5, and there is an Enervation trap ahead it is much more likely that the Rogue finds the trap by triggering it, or attempts to disarm it and instead triggers it than it is that the trap is successfully disarmed because DC 29 is simply too high for a 5th level character to hit reliably without nerfing every other aspect of their character just to get traps. Warlocks are much better at getting traps due to having Detect and Dispel at will, but that's just the icing. Since you're going to trigger the trap anyways you might as well have someone with better defenses do it.

PF nerfs the effects of traps quite heavily, but leaves the rest of it alone. That simply encourages you to keep doing that.

Killer Angel

2011-10-14, 07:37 AM

Comparing me to Giacomo is highly insulting and offensive. There is nothing close to a comparison here.

The comparison was merely in "sustaining a point that goes against a shared common ground". And debating a difference from T4 and T5 got more basis than debating no difference from T4 and T5... (but for coherence, you should degrade the current T5 to T6).
If you feel insulted or offended, it wasn't my intention and I apologize.

Edit: not so excited about it, but if you want to continue the debate, you can PM me, there's no need in further derailing the thread. Tough the weekend is drawing near, and I may not be on line.

Anarchy_Kanya

2011-10-14, 07:49 AM

Edit: not so excited about it, but if you want to continue the debate, you can PM me, there's no need in further derailing the thread. Tough the weekend is drawing near, and I may not be on line.
I wouldn't bother. It's obvious that he won't get convinced and you will just stress your ass off while trying.

Leon

2011-10-14, 08:37 AM

Anarchy_Kanya

2011-10-14, 08:43 AM

{{Scrubbed}}
Doesn't make it any less correct.

Leon

2011-10-14, 08:57 AM

Doesn't make it any less correct.

By who's standards?

Amphetryon

2011-10-14, 09:12 AM

By who's standards?

By the given standards of the Tier system, I would think.

Yora

2011-10-14, 09:13 AM

By the given standards of the Tier system, I would think.
Why are you quoting the single line from the post before yours?

Anarchy_Kanya

2011-10-14, 09:16 AM

By who's standards?
By the standards that matter, maybe? And those people who know what they're saying thanks to much experience and thought? And not just their personal experience, but also opinions and analysis gathered from countless other players?

Gwendol

2011-10-14, 09:39 AM

Leon is right though... I've read the reasons for placing classes in specific tiers and they really are suggestions, not absolutes. It is clear that a wizard, druid, or cleric will easility outshine any other class wrt power and versatility in theory, and in many cases in-game, but for the rest I think it's a crap-shoot. MAD classes are at a disadvantage, but all classes are "playable" and "enjoyable".

Basket Burner

2011-10-14, 09:45 AM

The comparison was merely in "sustaining a point that goes against a shared common ground". And debating a difference from T4 and T5 got more basis than debating no difference from T4 and T5... (but for coherence, you should degrade the current T5 to T6).
If you feel insulted or offended, it wasn't my intention and I apologize.

Edit: not so excited about it, but if you want to continue the debate, you can PM me, there's no need in further derailing the thread. Tough the weekend is drawing near, and I may not be on line.

Just because something isn't popular does not mean it isn't true. Giacomo was unpopular, and also wrong. It's the wrong part that's important.

I don't really care too much about continuing. I have already said just about all that needs to be said.

As for the merits of the Tier system itself, aside from overvaluing skills there are not too many problems with it. If you are in one of the top three tiers, your play is primarily defined by what you can do. If you are in one of the bottom three tiers, your play is primarily defined by what you cannot do. And the top 3 are closer together than the bottom 3 in most cases so for example a drop from 4 to 5 is a lot more meaningful than a drop from 1 to 2.

Leon

2011-10-14, 10:18 AM

By the standards that matter, maybe? And those people who know what they're saying thanks to much experience and thought? And not just their personal experience, but also opinions and analysis gathered from countless other players?

What Standards Matter?

The Tier list is something that overall each individual should decide if its something they might use or not. Its not a absolute way to anything - some may value it and hold it dear and others see it as a supurfulous.

Slipperychicken

2011-10-14, 10:31 AM

Claiming that Monks are better than Wizards is something based on a foolish argument or no argument at all Trolling.

Fixed That For Ya

Curious

2011-10-14, 10:35 AM

Nothing - If you want it to be a Tier XYZ rating then do so.
The tier list is after all a home brew creation that is but some persons whims on what they think things should be ranked as.

Uh. . . No? It's not just some whimsical thing somebody decided to slap together some day, it's a reasoned analysis of the power imbalances between different classes using a ranking system to place them. It clearly states what measure it uses for different power levels, and then goes on to analyze nearly every base class in the game to show you how they fit.

I understand you may be one of those people who think that any different class can be used in a game with any other. This is true. However, shoving classes of varying power into one game is much easier when you know how much more powerful they are. That is what the tier system is for. It is not a tool people use so they can go, 'lol, look at him not playing a tier 1 lol.' It is a measuring stick to make your life easier.

Anarchy_Kanya

2011-10-14, 10:38 AM

What Standards Matter?

The Tier list is something that overall each individual should decide if its something they might use or not. Its not a absolute way to anything - some may value it and hold it dear and others see it as a supurfulous.
And the OP decided that he wants to use it and asks for opinions those people who also use it. And just because you don't use it, doesn't mean that it's somehow wrong, or shouldn't be used.
So, yeah... What's your purpose of posting in this thread again?

Amphetryon

2011-10-14, 10:45 AM

Why are you quoting the single line from the post before yours?

To make certain that my response was seen as pertaining to the person I was answering, given the propensity of ninjas swordsages to attack all over the forums here.

Killer Angel

2011-10-14, 10:45 AM

I don't really care too much about continuing. I have already said just about all that needs to be said.

I agree. :smallsmile:

As for the merits of the Tier system itself, aside from overvaluing skills there are not too many problems with it.

This is another argument, that interests me.
Why do you thing that skills are overvalued? leaving aside the broken / overpowered ones (Diplomacy, UMD, and so on), skills are valuable.
Tumble is often vital for "melee" types; knowledges gives precious infos to casters... staying on the rogue's area, hide is poorly considered ("invisibility! ahahah"), but i find it very effective: at low levels (where your wizard can't always provide Inv.), you can max it and go unnoticed. At mid level, it effectively suffers heavily from hide magic, but at lev. high-very high, when monster will have a lot of ways to see/detect inv. (if not directly True Seeing always active), the mundane Hide will be a winning card.

Doug Lampert

2011-10-14, 11:07 AM

Traps? All of the traps that matter have Search and Disable DCs of 24 + CR. So if you are level 5, and there is an Enervation trap ahead it is much more likely that the Rogue finds the trap by triggering it, or attempts to disarm it and instead triggers it than it is that the trap is successfully disarmed because DC 29 is simply too high for a 5th level character to hit reliably without nerfing every other aspect of their character just to get traps. Warlocks are much better at getting traps due to having Detect and Dispel at will, but that's just the icing. Since you're going to trigger the trap anyways you might as well have someone with better defenses do it.

PF nerfs the effects of traps quite heavily, but leaves the rest of it alone. That simply encourages you to keep doing that.
Traps that matter are command detonated and covered by monsters. Similar to the way that militarily important mine-fields are those covered by troops.

If you waste time searching near such a trap the monsters are killing you.

Isolated traps in a corridor for no particular reason and placed where the inhabitants need to walk? Senseless, but ASSUMING the existence of such senseless traps the Rogue's search is useless against them unless he has some way to search at full value while walking at a reasonable speed.

From the SRD: It takes a full-round action to search a 5-foot-by-5-foot area or a volume of goods 5 feet on a side.

So, if you take 10 or actually roll, your rogue can walk down a corridor or through the fortress courtyard at about 1/2 mph, somewhat slower than a crawling baby. At least the foes will have plenty of time to gather their forces and put on armor.

If he takes 20 he moves somewhat faster than the common snail, but I now know what the Rogue is doing while the wizard sleeps, he's searching for traps, because it takes FOREVER.

Baring opening treasure chests; you simply can't effectively search for traps unless the DM puts a glowing neon sign saying "SEARCH HERE FOR TRAPS" in an otherwise empty section of the dungeon where there's no time pressure.

Full round action per 5' is too slow.

JaronK

2011-10-14, 12:32 PM

Some skills are useless (Decipher Script?). Some only require a couple ranks to be good enough (Ride, Autohypnosis, Craft). Some are overpowered by RAW (Diplomacy). Some are trumped by magic too easily (Open Lock). But there's a bunch that are actually quite good, and require significant ranks to remain that way. For example, Disguise isn't trumped by any spells... you need to beat the disguise check. This matters a lot if you change your type via Disguise... for example a human looking undead, or an undead looking alive, so as to confuse enemies and have them target you with the wrong effects (having someone blow a fort based save or die on your necropolitan is fun). Likewise, with Darkstalker (should just be a class ability, but whatever), Hide and Move Silently are solid skills, but need to be pumped up to really work (remember, distance modifiers are on your side!). Always getting the surprise round because they don't see you coming is pretty potent. Iaijutsu Focus is of course useful (not a class skill for Rogues of course). Knowledge skills when combined with Knowledge Devotion (again, not a Rogue thing) certainly can be useful. Lord knows the skill system in 3.5 isn't perfect, but there's definitely things you can do with it.

And Disable Device/Search are necessary in some campaigns, though less so in others... but you REALLY need to pump those skills. Of course, dealing with stuff like WLD and ToEE taught me that being a Necropolitan stealth class was much better, because being immune to those traps and having more hit points becomes critical when the DCs are insanely high. If you can't pump the skills high enough, you end up being better off putting the Monk in front, which sucks.

JaronK

Basket Burner

2011-10-14, 01:08 PM

This is another argument, that interests me.
Why do you thing that skills are overvalued? leaving aside the broken / overpowered ones (Diplomacy, UMD, and so on), skills are valuable.
Tumble is often vital for "melee" types; knowledges gives precious infos to casters... staying on the rogue's area, hide is poorly considered ("invisibility! ahahah"), but i find it very effective: at low levels (where your wizard can't always provide Inv.), you can max it and go unnoticed. At mid level, it effectively suffers heavily from hide magic, but at lev. high-very high, when monster will have a lot of ways to see/detect inv. (if not directly True Seeing always active), the mundane Hide will be a winning card.

The short answer is that they are, but that isn't a very good explanation.

Skills are in the E6 bin. That means that just like many other things such as full BAB, and those dependent on it, and... a lot of non magical things actually they are things that might make a difference at the first few levels of play and then quickly fall off after that.

Diplomacy is one of the better ones, but when the highest practical use is for all intents and purposes a 1st level spell and the highest use period is around a 5th level spell it simply isn't as good as it is hyped up to be.

UMD is a skill that is as good as the things you can activate with it. In 3.5 there are good wands to use, don't get me wrong but I'm not seeing something whose best use involves a DC 20 check to be all that valuable. What happens is you boost it for a few levels, hit the desired benchmark and then ignore it because you already have all you need from it. The correct solution to this is to make there be important things that you would like to do with a DC higher than 20. The PF "solution" to this was to keep effects the same but raise the DCs to get those effects, making skills bad at all levels. They didn't do this with UMD I think, but they did with others. Such as the next one...

Tumble is alright for avoiding AoOs, but it is hardly the only means of doing that, and it again hits the DC 20 problem. You get everything that it can do that matters early and that's it, no point in further investment.

Knowledge skills, by RAW are not good for anything except powering Knowledge Devotion. You make a DC 40 check to determine that is a [CR 20 age category] Blue Dragon. Even if you would prefer a different example, that is not color coded for your convenience you get that, and the dragon type information and if you want something else (such as information that would actually help you) you have to beat the DC by 5 for each and every bit of information. And since it is based on HD instead of CR you are already having a hard time just meeting the basic DC. Sure, 80% chance for a Wizard but anyone else? And +5 DC = -25% chance. So if you wanted to know that it breathes lightning, is immune to lightning, and has spell resistance you'd better be a Wizard with max ranks, max Int, and roll a 20.

Too many things defeat mundane stealth for it to be any good. Darkstalker stops many, but not all of those things.

The overvalued part comes when:

Skills are about the only way anyone that cannot cast spells can contribute outside of combat.
Skill heavy characters, like the Rogue get shafted in combat under the belief that skills are more valuable than they actually are.

The bits about skills stopping any sort of meaningful scaling early and/or being replaced by spells are also true but ultimately secondary. Even if Spider Climb didn't exist Climb would be a bad skill. I say that it's secondary so that people will not get caught up thinking that it's just because spells do it better. There is far more to it than that and the spells mainly come into play when people realize the skills do not perform their intended functions and look for alternatives.

*snip*

That's also true, but even given there being no imminent danger he's not getting the +19 modifiers required to take 10 in passing and he's not taking 20 on Disable Device, because you can't. So you're going to deal with the Enervation trap in some way other than having the Rogue make a skill check.

As for the trap's placement, if it's in an undead heavy area not necessarily. It actually helps them if I recall correctly. But whereever it is, the Rogue is not the one dealing with it, and if he is it's not by trapfinding.

Provengreil

2011-10-14, 02:03 PM

The short answer is that they are, but that isn't a very good explanation.

Skills are in the E6 bin. That means that just like many other things such as full BAB, and those dependent on it, and... a lot of non magical things actually they are things that might make a difference at the first few levels of play and then quickly fall off after that.

Diplomacy is one of the better ones, but when the highest practical use is for all intents and purposes a 1st level spell and the highest use period is around a 5th level spell it simply isn't as good as it is hyped up to be.

UMD is a skill that is as good as the things you can activate with it. In 3.5 there are good wands to use, don't get me wrong but I'm not seeing something whose best use involves a DC 20 check to be all that valuable. What happens is you boost it for a few levels, hit the desired benchmark and then ignore it because you already have all you need from it. The correct solution to this is to make there be important things that you would like to do with a DC higher than 20. The PF "solution" to this was to keep effects the same but raise the DCs to get those effects, making skills bad at all levels. They didn't do this with UMD I think, but they did with others. Such as the next one...

Tumble is alright for avoiding AoOs, but it is hardly the only means of doing that, and it again hits the DC 20 problem. You get everything that it can do that matters early and that's it, no point in further investment.

Knowledge skills, by RAW are not good for anything except powering Knowledge Devotion. You make a DC 40 check to determine that is a [CR 20 age category] Blue Dragon. Even if you would prefer a different example, that is not color coded for your convenience you get that, and the dragon type information and if you want something else (such as information that would actually help you) you have to beat the DC by 5 for each and every bit of information. And since it is based on HD instead of CR you are already having a hard time just meeting the basic DC. Sure, 80% chance for a Wizard but anyone else? And +5 DC = -25% chance. So if you wanted to know that it breathes lightning, is immune to lightning, and has spell resistance you'd better be a Wizard with max ranks, max Int, and roll a 20.

Too many things defeat mundane stealth for it to be any good. Darkstalker stops many, but not all of those things.

The overvalued part comes when:

Skills are about the only way anyone that cannot cast spells can contribute outside of combat.
Skill heavy characters, like the Rogue get shafted in combat under the belief that skills are more valuable than they actually are.

The bits about skills stopping any sort of meaningful scaling early and/or being replaced by spells are also true but ultimately secondary. Even if Spider Climb didn't exist Climb would be a bad skill. I say that it's secondary so that people will not get caught up thinking that it's just because spells do it better. There is far more to it than that and the spells mainly come into play when people realize the skills do not perform their intended functions and look for alternatives.

--snipped quote--

That's also true, but even given there being no imminent danger he's not getting the +19 modifiers required to take 10 in passing and he's not taking 20 on Disable Device, because you can't. So you're going to deal with the Enervation trap in some way other than having the Rogue make a skill check.

As for the trap's placement, if it's in an undead heavy area not necessarily. It actually helps them if I recall correctly. But whereever it is, the Rogue is not the one dealing with it, and if he is it's not by trapfinding.

Spoilered for brevity

can't the rogue...roll the check? just toss the die and accept the results? disable device is fine, just be aware that you can fail. worse things can happen, you know, as most traps are not instant death.

for your diplomacy argument, you can save vs spells. not vs diplomacy. read again : NO. SAVE. this is why pumping diplomacy is so powerful, and so hyped. it cannot be dispelled, reversed, resisted, or otherwise subverted outside the use of those same spells you referred to.

I'll accept the UMD idea, as it's true that using magic is only as good as the magic being used.

tumble also can reduce falling damage with a rising DC, IIRC. it can be used as a perform check, and the DC 25(not 20) check to move around in combat also rises with number of opponents, so more points is a good idea. vital to any rogue with something sharp and pointy in hand.

knowledge is information, information power. dragons are relatively famous, but what if it's, idk, an aboleth? If you haven't fought one before, a knowledge check might tell you to stay the heck away from its slime.

you claim skills do not perform their intended functions. I need to ask how you arrive at this conclusion, because the forgery skill produces forgeries, appraise saves me gp, survival helps me find food, and climb lets me climb walls. how is this not exactly what is supposed to happen?

Amphetryon

2011-10-14, 02:11 PM

Tumble at a DC 40 is also one of the few ways to get a 10' step instead of a 5' step; at least one of the others is entirely equipment dependent. Reliably hitting a DC 40 falls outside most definitions I'd comfortably call 'minimal investment'; I accept that my opinion may be in the minority.

JaronK

2011-10-14, 02:46 PM

Getting your Search and Disable Device skills high enough to actually deal with Gygaxian traps pretty much requires something like an Item Familiar or at least some solid custom items. Otherwise you need ablative trap protection (Malphas Birds, cheap Undead minions, etc).

JaronK

navar100

2011-10-14, 02:59 PM

Uh. . . No? It's not just some whimsical thing somebody decided to slap together some day, it's a reasoned analysis of the power imbalances between different classes using a ranking system to place them. It clearly states what measure it uses for different power levels, and then goes on to analyze nearly every base class in the game to show you how they fit.

I understand you may be one of those people who think that any different class can be used in a game with any other. This is true. However, shoving classes of varying power into one game is much easier when you know how much more powerful they are. That is what the tier system is for. It is not a tool people use so they can go, 'lol, look at him not playing a tier 1 lol.' It is a measuring stick to make your life easier.

The problem is the Tier system around here is often used for just that. It's treated as holy scripture to castigate any group with Tier 4 or 5 classes in the same party as Tier 1 let alone playing a Tier 4 or Tier 5 class at all because you are a drain to the party, pompous boasting of ban-hammering Tier 1 as if everyone should and if you don't you're a munchkin or Monty Hall, or accuse anyone not playing Tier 3 only as having Bad Wrong Fun.

It is such that attitude that would prompt someone to ask why Rogue is not Tier 3 as if not being Tier 3 or better is worse than having Leprosy before modern times.

Basket Burner

2011-10-14, 03:10 PM

can't the rogue...roll the check? just toss the die and accept the results? disable device is fine, just be aware that you can fail. worse things can happen, you know, as most traps are not instant death.

He can. But as I said before, the most likely result is that he either does not notice the trap until he sets it off, or he finds it, attempts to disarm it and instead springs it. The chance that he actually both finds and disables the trap is literally around 1%, and that's with a decent degree of resources devoted just to skills. So 1% of the time he does his job, and the other 99% you were better off just running through it, with someone else on point. Even a Monk would be a better choice. When a Monk can honestly be argued to be better than you, you know you have it bad.

And as someone else kindly pointed out, this is taking a great deal of time. The enemies you are facing have plenty of time to mobilize. All while you are going to set off the trap anyways.

for your diplomacy argument, you can save vs spells. not vs diplomacy. read again : NO. SAVE. this is why pumping diplomacy is so powerful, and so hyped. it cannot be dispelled, reversed, resisted, or otherwise subverted outside the use of those same spells you referred to.

It is easier to get someone to fail one save than it is to be able to make DC 60 skill checks. If it really bothers you, knock them unconscious and then cast it. Unconscious = willing.

tumble also can reduce falling damage with a rising DC, IIRC. it can be used as a perform check, and the DC 25(not 20) check to move around in combat also rises with number of opponents, so more points is a good idea. vital to any rogue with something sharp and pointy in hand.

DC 300 Tumble check to reduce the damage from a 20d6 fall to nothing. I am willing to wager that anyone anywhere near being able to make such a check has long since gained the ability to calmly walk away from a 20d6 fall, and has even longer had the ability to make themselves flat out immune to any and all falling damage at the cost of a single, minor item.

Even a DC 30 check to reduce fall damage by 20 feet is coming online well after you've stopped caring about falling damage entirely, either by having some means of Feather Fall or just shaking it off.

That leaves you with DC 15 for -1d6 fall damage as the only use available at a level in which it still matters. 15 is less than 20.

The DC to move around is 15, +5 if you would like to move at full speed instead of half, so 20. More opponents do raise it, but at the same time if your move takes you past multiple enemies either those enemies are mooks, so it doesn't matter or they are not mooks, so you should not go that far in lest you be surrounded and one rounded.

knowledge is information, information power. dragons are relatively famous, but what if it's, idk, an aboleth? If you haven't fought one before, a knowledge check might tell you to stay the heck away from its slime.

Level 7, DC 18 just to know it is an Aboleth + 5 for every piece of information you want to know about it. Which means you might not even get to know about the slime. And this is a creature that has HD close to its CR, so the DCs haven't taken off for it. Knowing it is an Aboleth isn't too hard if you have a Wizard as he will have +15 to the check. But getting the key information? It's more likely you find out the hard way. Bear Lore is an exaggeration, but it's thrown around a lot for a reason.

you claim skills do not perform their intended functions. I need to ask how you arrive at this conclusion, because the forgery skill produces forgeries, appraise saves me gp, survival helps me find food, and climb lets me climb walls. how is this not exactly what is supposed to happen?

You produce a forgery. Ok. What can you do with it? Are those things meaningful past low levels? (Answer: No.)
Appraise works on mundane things. Do mundane things have a value that is meaningful past low levels? (Answer: No.)
Survival lets you find food. The DC is 10, +2 per person. With 0 ranks, anyone with a non negative Wisdom can easily provide food for themselves indefinitely, with 0 ranks. Anyone with a Wis of 14+ can make up for at least one person with negative Wis, still with 0 ranks. It is likely that, in the typical party the group will be able to find food for more people than their group actually contains, indefinitely. For 0 ranks. So even if you do not have a low level item that renders such low level concepts such as needing food obsolete, is this a skill worth investing anything at all in? (Answer: No.)
Climb lets you climb walls. Is being able to climb walls meaningful past low levels? (Answer: No.)

Tumble at a DC 40 is also one of the few ways to get a 10' step instead of a 5' step; at least one of the others is entirely equipment dependent. Reliably hitting a DC 40 falls outside most definitions I'd comfortably call 'minimal investment'; I accept that my opinion may be in the minority.

There are multiple others, available far sooner. There are also plenty of extra movement abilities if that is what you need. It is not something to get excited over.

Getting your Search and Disable Device skills high enough to actually deal with Gygaxian traps pretty much requires something like an Item Familiar or at least some solid custom items. Otherwise you need ablative trap protection (Malphas Birds, cheap Undead minions, etc).

JaronK

Gygaxian? Those are entirely RAW magic traps. The DC is 25 + spell level, and the CR is 1 + spell level. I said that the DC was 24 + CR as a shorthand version of this.

Gygaxian traps wouldn't be disarmable/would be designed to do bad things to you if you tried to disarm it.

Amphetryon

2011-10-14, 03:14 PM

JaronK

2011-10-14, 03:42 PM

Gygaxian? Those are entirely RAW magic traps. The DC is 25 + spell level, and the CR is 1 + spell level. I said that the DC was 24 + CR as a shorthand version of this.

Gygaxian traps wouldn't be disarmable/would be designed to do bad things to you if you tried to disarm it.

At least in 3.5, the update of a Gygaxian trap is one that has a standard DC (as you say yourself, quite high) and seriously harms or kills you. Obviously, we don't care too much about traps with low DCs or ones that don't seriously screw you up, such as many in the DMG that just hit you for some damage.

JaronK

Kenneth

2011-10-14, 05:21 PM

The problem is the Tier system around here is often used for just that. It's treated as holy scripture to castigate any group with Tier 4 or 5 classes in the same party as Tier 1 let alone playing a Tier 4 or Tier 5 class at all because you are a drain to the party, pompous boasting of ban-hammering Tier 1 as if everyone should and if you don't you're a munchkin or Monty Hall, or accuse anyone not playing Tier 3 only as having Bad Wrong Fun.

It is such that attitude that would prompt someone to ask why Rogue is not Tier 3 as if not being Tier 3 or better is worse than having Leprosy before modern times.

while i completel agree with the first part of what navar said. the whole 'lulz joo not tier 1 nub failz' comment people give you when you talk about making a swordand shield fighter and told how worhtless they are and why yo should be a druid instead etc etc etc.

I gave up a long time ago trying to have those 'optimizers' make me a charatcer eucse i say i want this' and they say ' wizard X incantrixX blah X almost every damn time. if I wnated to be a wizard i would, a rock playing a wizard is able to break teh game, so I do not understand why peole have sucha hard on about these dman 'tiers' honestly it was not untill just a few months ago that I even new what teh hell 'tier's were. and while Mechanically I totally agree with the base concpet (i.e why be anything else but a wizard when a wizard does everything only better?)

I hate the fact that ever since 3rd ed and the big math formual it was came, peopel have found and urge to break it, and left storytelling and RPing in teh dust as the main points of D&D, now you can argue against me but, if you actually tout the 'tier' system then yeah.. you just proved my point. the 'tier' system is 100% about the mechanic of the class.

I am glad that i grew up with a D&D where you were actually forced to RP you charatcer insteadof just syaing ' i got a 42 on my search, do I find traps?" instead of the old actually having to say what you were doing and how you were doing it, the same in the form of bluff/dipl;omacy now I just go /roll d20 + mad crazy mdifier oh I got a 61 on my bluff/diplomacy looks liek they bleive whatever I tell them/agree with whatever I say. instead of you know actually telling everybody what your character is saying that would cause themt o bleive you or to agree with your point of view.

WHy i asked about what could make rogue 'tier' 3 is D&D stopped being the same game it was a decade ago, it beame more about mechanics than having fun and playing a cool role in a make beleive world of awesome!

I am putting together (finally) all of my housrules and when I noticed that the rogue was 'tier' 4 i was like 'ugh' I want my house rules to get published soem day ala how pathfinder got theirs ( a man can dream, right?) and I do not want any of today;s modern D&Ders to feel useless so I am aiming to make all classes at least 'tier' 3 so that in every situation they can feel worthwhile.

my issue was i literally left the rogue unchanged, and honestly coul not understand why the rogue was in 'tier' 4, the whole why rogue is
tier' 4 thread actuall left me even more cofnused.

I know that my banning of a lot of superferlous classes did a LOT to balance the 'tier' stuff in my world. while you mgith say ' rawr you just a splat book hater' no actually i am not. and it irks me to no end that a lot of my houseules and homebrewed classes eventually came out later in a damn splat book. I just feel that in fantasy there are archetypical 'roles' that exist and those 'roles' are what I have in my world. to me all a beguler is , is a rogue that multiclassed into wizard and focuses on enchament and illisions. etc so there are no beguilers in my world.

again i am not a stictler for 'tiers' in D&D i just wanted a way to get a rogue at teir 3 and so far teh answers i have gotten are as follow

let teh rogue sneak attack everything

let the rogue dispel magic locks

give the rogue better defenses

some of these i disliek. to me the rogue SHOULD be squishy to me a rogue is't meant to go one on one mano e mano agianst a big brute, say... an ogre for example. he si supposed ot be a skirmisher bale to hit fast and hard then get teh hell away before there is any retaliation. if you want a rogue to tank. well to me that is not a rouge anymmore.

anyways i think i am getting a littel angry and have probably misspelled half my post /shrug it just been one of those days.

Basket Burner

2011-10-14, 05:21 PM

I'd love to see a list of those, particularly those not dependent upon a caster or a specific item.

I don't feel like going through the complete list but a 1.4k item (Anklet of Translocation), a 1st level maneuver (Sudden Leap), and a feat (Travel Devotion) all give you extra movement. Combine it with the much lower than 40 Tumble check if needed and no AoOs. There's an item or two that lets you 10 foot step, and an item and a maneuver that let you 5 foot step twice but I don't remember the names. All in all, nothing you can't get well before you can reliably hit DC 40 checks.

Jaron: Spell traps still have low save DCs, so hardly Gygaxian. Just that they are not getting found by the Trapfinding ability when used by a Rogue. A Warlock with Detect/Dispel could do it well enough, as can others, but not a Rogue, and probably not a Trapfinder (skill based).

Or you can just run through it.

Amphetryon

2011-10-14, 06:34 PM

I don't feel like going through the complete list but a 1.4k item (Anklet of Translocation), a 1st level maneuver (Sudden Leap), and a feat (Travel Devotion) all give you extra movement. Combine it with the much lower than 40 Tumble check if needed and no AoOs. There's an item or two that lets you 10 foot step, and an item and a maneuver that let you 5 foot step twice but I don't remember the names. All in all, nothing you can't get well before you can reliably hit DC 40 checks.

The Anklet is item specific, which I asked to avoid.

Sudden Leap has another maneuver as a prerequisite, making it a greater, not lesser, investment for any non-initiator, as characters - especially rogues - have more skill points to spend than feats. It also requires investment in Jump and Tumble to use effectively, funnily enough. That makes it more skill-dependent, not less. Initiators are higher placed than Rogues on the Tier system, but that alone isn't evidence Rogues need a further downgrade.

Travel Devotion is once per day unless you have Turn Undead, which means you're a higher Tier than the Rogue - Tier 1 or 2, in all but corner cases. That makes it a much worse choice to reliably move 10' without an AoO for those without the Turn Undead recharge mechanic. Comparing a class that's listed at Tier 4 to ones listed at 1 or 2 and using the latter as evidence that the former are too high on the list is an odd strategem, to my mind.

Qwertystop

2011-10-14, 07:09 PM

lots of stuff

Okay, this is very wrong.

Firstly, D&D is not all about mechanics. Roleplay is still a major part. However, since roleplay intrinsically doesn't have rules, nobody's going to make a tier system based on roleplay. When you ask for advice for a certain concept, people will give you a build that can do what you're looking for. For example, if you're looking for a "samurai", the Samurai base class is not the right way to do that. If you're looking for a powerful melee fighter, the Fighter class is astonishingly poor at actually filling that hole. The fact is that no matter how well you roleplay, if the character roleplayed as an incredibly powerful giant-slayer can't actually kill a Cloud Giant without fudging all the die rolls, the whole thing falls apart. People can't give you tips for roleplay.

Also, just because (for example) you roll a die for searching, that doesn't mean you don't roleplay it. It just means that you figure out whether or not you succeeded, then you can describe how you did so. It gives a way to determine whether you actually did something beyond just saying you did it, or trying to convince the DM to make an arbitrary ruling in your favor.

Also, please try to type intelligibly. For example, there is such a thing as spell-check. It took me about as long to read your post as it did to type mine.

navar100

2011-10-14, 09:27 PM

Okay, this is very wrong.

Firstly, D&D is not all about mechanics. Roleplay is still a major part. However, since roleplay intrinsically doesn't have rules, nobody's going to make a tier system based on roleplay. When you ask for advice for a certain concept, people will give you a build that can do what you're looking for. For example, if you're looking for a "samurai", the Samurai base class is not the right way to do that. If you're looking for a powerful melee fighter, the Fighter class is astonishingly poor at actually filling that hole. The fact is that no matter how well you roleplay, if the character roleplayed as an incredibly powerful giant-slayer can't actually kill a Cloud Giant without fudging all the die rolls, the whole thing falls apart. People can't give you tips for roleplay.

Also, just because (for example) you roll a die for searching, that doesn't mean you don't roleplay it. It just means that you figure out whether or not you succeeded, then you can describe how you did so. It gives a way to determine whether you actually did something beyond just saying you did it, or trying to convince the DM to make an arbitrary ruling in your favor.

Also, please try to type intelligibly. For example, there is such a thing as spell-check. It took me about as long to read your post as it did to type mine.

Partly true, in the sense of not violating Stormwind Fallacy. There's no problem wanting to create a warrior-type character who can dish out lots and lots of damage as soon and as efficient as possible to go along with playing said character as if you're starring on Broadway.

However, if someone is going to play a Fighter and wants to play a Fighter and only cares about playing a Fighter, it is rather rude to admonish him that choice and tell him to play a Warblade or Barbarian instead. You help the player with feat choices, skill use, and tactics. Consideration of a prestige class is fine. And PLEASE don't tell him just play a druid!

If the player isn't hard set on the Fighter class and is more into a particular combat style, then non-Fighter class options wouldn't be rude.

Curious

2011-10-14, 09:50 PM

Partly true, in the sense of not violating Stormwind Fallacy. There's no problem wanting to create a warrior-type character who can dish out lots and lots of damage as soon and as efficient as possible to go along with playing said character as if you're starring on Broadway.

However, if someone is going to play a Fighter and wants to play a Fighter and only cares about playing a Fighter, it is rather rude to admonish him that choice and tell him to play a Warblade or Barbarian instead. You help the player with feat choices, skill use, and tactics. Consideration of a prestige class is fine. And PLEASE don't tell him just play a druid!

If the player isn't hard set on the Fighter class and is more into a particular combat style, then non-Fighter class options wouldn't be rude.

If someone says they want to play a fighter, I assume they mean they want to play an interesting, powerful class based around hitting things with a sword. The fighter class can't do that, so my first thought is to recommend a class that can, hence, the warblade.

Elric VIII

2011-10-14, 11:31 PM

If someone says they want to play a fighter, I assume they mean they want to play an interesting, powerful class based around hitting things with a sword. The fighter class can't do that, so my first thought is to recommend a class that can, hence, the warblade.

The thing is, I have seen many people that cannot or will not come to terms with the concept that you don't need to play the Fighter class in order to be a Fighter. Look at a common example found in these forums almost weekly: building a Monk.

Someone says they want to play a monk character or ask for help optimizing the Monk class; the classic response is, "play an Unarmed Swordsage." This is done because the USS duplicates (with more competence) the abilities that the Monk tries to have.

Invariably, someone makes the argument that a) The Swordsage is too magical or b) a Swordsage is not a Monk. So, in spite of the fact that Swordsage emulates a monk better than Monk, people get hung up on a name or an optional feature that can easily be ignored.

This is exacerbated by the fact that when someone says, "I want to play a monk," half of the people assume that the OP will not accept anything other than a Monk 20 build. This is, of course, hyperbole; but it is the basis of many arguments.

That is then inflated, by mostly anecdotal evidence and exaggeration, to the point that people argue that everytime someone asks about making a suboptimal character better the optimizers will just say "play a druid."

Kenneth

2011-10-14, 11:33 PM

K so i have a question to all the 'don't play fighters cuz they fail at fighter stuff' guys, what did you do when there was just core? tell them tog o druid to lauhg at them for being a fighter?'

maybe I just need to accept teh fact that I am old school and think its more about having a good time and seeing your character concept come to life and get more powerul and is able to acheive greater and greater feats.

Just becuase soembody wants to play a sword and shield fighter, and WoTC failed to put any supporting feats or really ANYTHING for that particualr ICONIC fantasy role, to me does not mean you should penalize them or force/suggest them to take X class,

for me I try my damndest to make every single player i have ever had feel worhtwhile and not like they are dirt under people feat,s it not theri fault that a iconic game with new ownernship and new creative designers who failed to comprehedn that they were making a brand new game not just another edition of D&D. and so left out a LOT of roles that you can find thousands of example of completely unsupported roles in the various rules, feats, classes, prestige classes. etc etc

for me that don't mean that you completely SH!T over soembody character concpet, you try your best as a good DM to make it work, its suppsoed to be a roleplaying game afetr all (at least it was) so maybe use soem roleplaying and play a bit mroe as Jiriku classified my playstyle, cinematically. keep the roll d20 add stuf own face rules but allow the weaker classes such as fighter to be just as cool in 'storymode' and break teh rules so you player can feel that his concpet is actually worth something.

sometimes you need to bedn/twist/flat-out break the rules of D&D so your players (all of them) can have fun and feel needed. it might even say something to this effect hidden somewhere in the dmg for all i know.

Elric VIII

2011-10-14, 11:50 PM

K so i have a question to all the 'don't play fighters cuz they fail at fighter stuff' guys, what did you do when there was just core? tell them tog o druid to lauhg at them for being a fighter?'

It ceases to be an issue of better options than a Fighter when dealing only with core. This is like saying that just because some people do not have something, that no one should have it. If you want to play a fighter and the core Fighter is all you have, you make due. Would this be an issue if someone wanted to play a Favored Soul and the Core-only restriction forced them into Cleric?

maybe I just need to accept teh fact that I am old school and think its more about having a good time and seeing your character concept come to life and get more powerul and is able to acheive greater and greater feats.

See my above post. Why exactly should someone be forced to use an option they do not like? Are you implying that Warblade 1 is the exact same thing as Warblade 20? Will using a more powerful character rob someone of their ability to grow and develop?

Just becuase soembody wants to play a sword and shield fighter, and WoTC failed to put any supporting feats or really ANYTHING for that particualr ICONIC fantasy role, to me does not mean you should penalize them or force/suggest them to take X class,

Yeah, I hate it when the forumgoers come to my house and force me to play a Crusader under threat of personal harm. No one here is forcing you to play a specific class, but if I say, "I'm having trouble driving this nail in with my screwdriver," I won't begrudge the advice to use a hammer instead.

for me I try my damndest to make every single player i have ever had feel worhtwhile and not like they are dirt under people feat,s it not theri fault that a iconic game with new ownernship and new creative designers who failed to comprehedn that they were making a brand new game not just another edition of D&D. and so left out a LOT of roles that you can find thousands of example of completely unsupported roles in the various rules, feats, classes, prestige classes. etc etc

I don't quite understand this comment, could you please rephrase it for my benefit? Thanks.

for me that don't mean that you completely SH!T over soembody character concpet, you try your best as a good DM to make it work, its suppsoed to be a roleplaying game afetr all (at least it was) so maybe use soem roleplaying and play a bit mroe as Jiriku classified my playstyle, cinematically. keep the roll d20 add stuf own face rules but allow the weaker classes such as fighter to be just as cool in 'storymode' and break teh rules so you player can feel that his concpet is actually worth something.

If you want to ditch the mechanics in favor of story, that's fine. Just don't complain that D&D does not have rules for roleplaying. 3e is a set of mechanics and suggested fluff to apply to your roleplaying experience. One game that has always intrigued me, from a roleplaying standpoint, is the Amber Diceless Roleplaying Game . This game has no objective mechanics, only subjective; PCs rank themselves on a scale of group power in different attributes and it is up to the DM to decide the mechanical outcome of their actions. No dice or numbers to optimize. But that isn't how 3.5 was designed.

sometimes you need to bedn/twist/flat-out break the rules of D&D so your players (all of them) can have fun and feel needed. it might even say something to this effect hidden somewhere in the dmg for all i know.

I had a DM do this to me, I had multiple divinations cast/up and a nice set of countermeasures. He decided that the rules of my spells didn't work and flat out lied to me on successful divinations. That is not fun.

navar100

2011-10-15, 12:11 AM

Kenneth

2011-10-15, 12:21 AM

Yeah, I hate it when the forumgoers come to my house and force me to play a Crusader under threat of personal harm. No one here is forcing you to play a specific class, but if I say, "I'm having trouble driving this nail in with my screwdriver," I won't begrudge the advice to use a hammer instead.

I had a DM do this to me, I had multiple divinations cast/up and a nice set of countermeasures. He decided that the rules of my spells didn't work and flat out lied to me on successful divinations. That is not fun.

yes becuase I totally said in my post how 'scary forum goers' come to my house with a gun to my head and say ' don't be a rogue, factotum is better in everywhay!'.. reallyt where did I even come close to saying that?

and yeah the ignoring rules can work both ways, in case you did not know that is possibel, everythnig has both a good and bad side to it. I am not an anti-player DM ( some are most aren't) if I am saying your divinationd on't work its not to screw you over, its to make the game more fun and not have you spoil everythnig with a simple spell.

just becuase you had a bad expeicne doesn't mean you have to ruin it for everybody else. I am sure there are in actuality some players out there who woudl enjoy a more grand scale story telling game play supported by teh rule than the other way to play. ( I admit i could be wrong here)

oh, not only is ignoring rules work both way, so can actuallplay by teh rules, hey wanna break the game, yes, one can do that according to the rules via certain classes. did you ever stop to wonder that MAYBE your divination were going to RUIn the plot of your whole campaign for everybody at teh table? I am not saying it was a certainty but it is possilbe, some popel, like myself, LOVE to have an air of mystery and surmountable obstacle to overcome in regard to completeing a campagn arc, having everything handed to me becuase of some spells or skill checks etc, or knowing that there is absolutely no way we can fial makes the game very boring for me, again that is MY playstyle, other do like to 'play with cheats' i guess for lakc of a betetr term. I call it that becuae its like putting in cheats on your old Age fo EMpires game to remvoe fog of war get the mech unit, instant buidl times etc. yeah its fun to be so utter craxy powerful but its not as rewarding when you defeat teh campaing that way, again at least in my opinion.

I will just leave this subject alone now, and say that we all have very differt; playstyles and it seems my playstyle outside of my gaming group, is definately the HUGE minority.

I want to clearify that if you are one of those who dislike my particular gamestyle that I am in no way trying to insult you or offedn you. lets just agree to disagree and move on

and to repshrase the part youd o not udnertsan i'll try to keep it to a very base of things. I let players play aconcept and never penalize them for playing it, becuase I dislike making players feel bad or not wanted. WoTC messed D&D up in that they played 3rd ed classes like they were played in 1st and 2dn 9there is proof of that somehwere on the interwebs if you look hard enough) and for some reason didn't relaize that while 1st and 2nd were not that different in gamestyle wat.. 2nd and 3rd was off by a large tract, thats why clerics, druids and wizards got such a HUGE powerbuff, theyf elt 'oh lets get rid of those crazy restriciotn these classes had back in the day' not understanding that those restriction were slightly justified.

Elric VIII

2011-10-15, 12:37 AM

yes becuase I totally said in my post how 'scary forum goers' come to my house with a gun to my head and say ' don't be a rogue, factotum is better in everywhay!'.. reallyt where did I even come close to saying that?

I respond to this with the following quote:
Just becuase soembody wants to play a sword and shield fighter, and WoTC failed to put any supporting feats or really ANYTHING for that particualr ICONIC fantasy role, to me does not mean you should penalize them or force/suggest them to take X class,

It seems you agree that we on GitP "force" people to use optimized characters.

and yeah the ignoring rules can work both ways, in case you did not know that is possibel, everythnig has both a good and bad side to it. I am not an anti-player DM ( some are most aren't) if I am saying your divinationd on't work its not to screw you over, its to make the game more fun and not have you spoil everythnig with a simple spell.

Why do you assume that it made the game better? All it would have let me do is not fall into a trap that stripped me of all of my magic and rendered me quite useless. As such, I get to sit in a corner, since my character lost all of his buffs/combat spells and I am a melee Cleric that has self-buff and ally healing. Basically, I'm forced into healbot mode.

just becuase you had a bad expeicne doesn't mean you have to ruin it for everybody else. I am sure there are in actuality some players out there who woudl enjoy a more grand scale story telling game play supported by teh rule than the other way to play. ( I admit i could be wrong here)

Wrong or not, why can't the converse be true? Why do you assume that I am ruining it for everybody else? Why can't people enjoy mechanics?

oh, not only is ignoring rules work both way, so can actuallplay by teh rules, hey wanna break the game, yes, one can do that according to the rules via certain classes. did you ever stop to wonder that MAYBE your divination were going to RUIn the plot of your whole campaign for everybody at teh table? I am not saying it was a certainty but it is possilbe, some popel, like myself, LOVE to have an air of mystery and surmountable obstacle to overcome in regard to completeing a campagn arc, having everything handed to me becuase of some spells or skill checks etc, or knowing that there is absolutely no way we can fial makes the game very boring for me, again that is MY playstyle, other do like to 'play with cheats' i guess for lakc of a betetr term. I call it that becuae its like putting in cheats on your old Age fo EMpires game to remvoe fog of war get the mech unit, instant buidl times etc. yeah its fun to be so utter craxy powerful but its not as rewarding when you defeat teh campaing that way, again at least in my opinion.

I was using a specific to illustrate a general. I would be inclined to say that most players don't want the DM to cheat to render then irrelevant.

Before you accuse me of "cheating" (you seem to be missing the point of the example, anyway) you should know that I always ask DM permission, multiple times, about using divination-type magic. Although, that is moot, I am trying to say that maybe the player of the Warblade will feel cheated when the DM says the his maneuvers don't work (with no rules basis), but the Fighter's feats do.

I will just leave this subject alone now, and say that we all have very differt; playstyles and it seems my playstyle outside of my gaming group, is definately the HUGE minority.

I want to clearify that if you are one of those who dislike my particular gamestyle that I am in no way trying to insult you or offedn you. lets just agree to disagree and move on

and to repshrase the part youd o not udnertsan i'll try to keep it to a very base of things. I let players play aconcept and never penalize them for playing it, becuase I dislike making players feel bad or not wanted. WoTC messed D&D up in that they played 3rd ed classes like they were played in 1st and 2dn 9there is proof of that somehwere on the interwebs if you look hard enough) and for some reason didn't relaize that while 1st and 2nd were not that different in gamestyle wat.. 2nd and 3rd was off by a large tract, thats why clerics, druids and wizards got such a HUGE powerbuff, theyf elt 'oh lets get rid of those crazy restriciotn these classes had back in the day' not understanding that those restriction were slightly justified.

To be quite frank, I don't care about your playstyle. You should not care about mine. Niether is wrong and niether is right. It's a game, have fun however you like.

The issue is that you seem to be offended by the fact that someone would dare to say that one class is better at something than another. This is completely objective and measurable. It is barely debatable that a Wizard can achieve the same end result as a Rogue at a given task. They may have a different means, but that is where the divide comes into play, a T1 class's means are more efficient than a T3, 4, or 5 class's means.

JaronK

2011-10-15, 12:53 AM

K so i have a question to all the 'don't play fighters cuz they fail at fighter stuff' guys, what did you do when there was just core? tell them tog o druid to lauhg at them for being a fighter?'

A lot of those people were playing Fighters, and getting horribly frustrated when the Druid's pet was doing better than they were. And at higher levels, they found out that their RP wasn't matching the crunch... they wanted to play Conan or Lancelot, and instead found they were worse than the puppy. Sure, they could RP as though they were great warriors, but when the fights came they just weren't.

And, not wanting others to go through this, those same players recommend playing a class that actually matches the RP of a great warrior or veteran soldier or war leader or whatever.

maybe I just need to accept teh fact that I am old school and think its more about having a good time and seeing your character concept come to life and get more powerul and is able to acheive greater and greater feats.

No, you have to accept that you either played very low levels or your DM did a great job making you look better. Or maybe the Druid players you played with just didn't do very much. But I have personally watched newbie players pick up a Druid and make the Fighter look stupid... all she wanted was to have a puppy, and then she noticed you could turn into a dinosaur. She wasn't trying to make the Fighter player redundant. It just happened.

Just becuase soembody wants to play a sword and shield fighter, and WoTC failed to put any supporting feats or really ANYTHING for that particualr ICONIC fantasy role, to me does not mean you should penalize them or force/suggest them to take X class,

You don't penalize them. Instead, you suggest how to actually make a sword and shield warrior so that they get to play the character they wanted to play. I recommend using a Crusader so you actually get fun shield abilities and actually feel like a heroic warrior.

JaronK

Basket Burner

2011-10-15, 06:44 AM

The Anklet is item specific, which I asked to avoid.

Why? Is it because an item you can afford at level 3 is, by its very nature something you will get sooner than +39 to a skill?

Sudden Leap has another maneuver as a prerequisite, making it a greater, not lesser, investment for any non-initiator, as characters - especially rogues - have more skill points to spend than feats. It also requires investment in Jump and Tumble to use effectively, funnily enough. That makes it more skill-dependent, not less. Initiators are higher placed than Rogues on the Tier system, but that alone isn't evidence Rogues need a further downgrade.

Dip Swordsage and/or spend 7.5k. As for the jumping itself, just being Hasted is +12 and you move distance = Jump result so it requires minimal investment to get extra move actions out of it. You are a non caster. Having to dip classes should not come as a surprise to you.

Travel Devotion is once per day unless you have Turn Undead, which means you're a higher Tier than the Rogue - Tier 1 or 2, in all but corner cases. That makes it a much worse choice to reliably move 10' without an AoO for those without the Turn Undead recharge mechanic. Comparing a class that's listed at Tier 4 to ones listed at 1 or 2 and using the latter as evidence that the former are too high on the list is an odd strategem, to my mind.

You get an extra move action. Much more than 10 feet. With that said it only takes a dip. Refer to previous comment regarding those. Even without that, 1/day move and full attack all combat is better than 5 extra feet of movement at a level long past the point where it has stopped mattering.

I can't understand a word Kenneth is saying.

Someone said something to the effect of "if someone is really deadset on having the Fighter name on their character sheet, it's rude to tell them to play something better".

That depends entirely upon how many sources are available. If all of them are, or at least most of them and they are willing to go raiding all of them in order to find the small number of things that help them then they might be fine. For a little while. But in a game with more restricted sources? Fighters are hopeless. Telling someone to escape a sinking ship is never rude, even if they are the captain.

Amphetryon

2011-10-15, 07:09 AM

Making a player aware that there are methods other than her initial suggestion to achieve her stated goal is not - repeat not - the same thing as telling that player that she cannot, or even should not, use the class she originally suggested.

For example:

Player: "I want to be a Paladin because I want a devoted holy warrior who can use a sword effectively and heal a little bit."

Forumite: "Okay, well, Paladin isn't especially good at those goals right out of the box. If you have access, I'd recommend taking a look at the Crusader. It fulfills the 'holy warrior with a sword & some healing' archetype more efficiently and with less effort."Note that the answer in no way says that using a Paladin is 'doing it wrong' or similar. The player gave reasons for wanting to fulfill a concept, and the forumite suggested a more efficient way to fulfill that archetype.

If (key word) the above player's response to the above indicates that ToB isn't available, or that she'd really like to play a Paladin specifically, it is exceedingly rare on this forum to see answers telling the player she's having WrongBadFun or needs to find a new DM. It's much more likely that the responses will be geared toward making the best Paladin possible.

* * * (swordsages EVERYWHERE) * * *

Why? Is it because an item you can afford at level 3 is, by its very nature something you will get sooner than +39 to a skill?It's because not every game has a MagicMart where all items are available when you want them, and it's because an inability to fulfill a request within its own parameters - provided those parameters aren't changing - doesn't bode well for a particular argument.

Dip Swordsage and/or spend 7.5k. As for the jumping itself, just being Hasted is +12 and you move distance = Jump result so it requires minimal investment to get extra move actions out of it. You are a non caster. Having to dip classes should not come as a surprise to you.See the previous comments about item dependency, and about using a class in a higher Tier to begin with (even as a dip) to argue that a lower-Tier class is placed too highly. In other words, the argument "Rogues should be Tier 5 because if they dipped into a higher Tier class they'd be more powerful" is not especially convincing.

Without items, dipping into a higher-Tier class/PrC, or depending on a higher-Tier caster, how's our hypothetical Rogue getting Haste? Don't say UMD, because you've consistently argued that skills are nigh-useless. . . .

You get an extra move action. Much more than 10 feet. With that said it only takes a dip. Refer to previous comment regarding those. Even without that, 1/day move and full attack all combat is better than 5 extra feet of movement at a level long past the point where it has stopped mattering.Yup, one whole time a day, unless you're going outside the Rogue.

Basket Burner

2011-10-15, 09:52 AM

It's because not every game has a MagicMart where all items are available when you want them, and it's because an inability to fulfill a request within its own parameters - provided those parameters aren't changing - doesn't bode well for a particular argument.

If there is no MagicMart in which all items are available when you want them, then you do not play a Rogue. You play something that is not heavily equipment dependent. As the request assumes that you are playing a Rogue, it also assumes that the game is not set up to screw over Rogues (and many others).

See the previous comments about item dependency, and about using a class in a higher Tier to begin with (even as a dip) to argue that a lower-Tier class is placed too highly. In other words, the argument "Rogues should be Tier 5 because if they dipped into a higher Tier class they'd be more powerful" is not especially convincing.

My argument that the Rogue is in too high a tier goes something like this:

Skills are overrated.
Rogues have an even harder time contributing to combat than Fighters.
As these are about the only two things that Rogues can do, they are not so well off.
Yet, they are placed where they are anyways because they have to be ranked higher than the CA Ninja (which Rogue is better than) and that in turn has to be ranked higher than Expert (but isn't because of one edge case skill usage). And yet, CW Samurai is in Tier 6 and yet has a far better use of skills than anything an Expert can manage.
So how then is an Expert higher than a CW Samurai? And since the others are mainly where they are because they have to be higher than the Expert, it's a case of one error leading to others.

This bit about dipping into other classes is a basic non caster thing, and a means of answering the question of how you replace overinflated skill checks and then some but has nothing to do with tier placement. So you see, that is not the argument that I am making.

Without items, dipping into a higher-Tier class/PrC, or depending on a higher-Tier caster, how's our hypothetical Rogue getting Haste? Don't say UMD, because you've consistently argued that skills are nigh-useless. . . .

1: That is not what I said about UMD.
2: If you are an item dependent class that cannot get the items you need to function, then you replace your character with one that is not item dependent, rendering the question moot. Otherwise you just take boots of speed like everyone else.

Yup, one whole time a day, unless you're going outside the Rogue.

Which is still a lot better than waiting until levels long past the levels in which equipment dependent characters who apparently cannot get equipment could make a DC 40 check... though really, they all died well before this point either due to being unable to perform in a level appropriate manner or because the players went for a different character that could actually work in that game.

Anarchy_Kanya

2011-10-15, 09:57 AM

You play something that is not heavily equipment dependent.
Monk with VoP! :smallbiggrin:

Amphetryon

2011-10-15, 10:25 AM

Rushed for time, so I'm not quoting individually.

@Basket_Weaver:
In one comment, you make the blanket statement that "skills are overrated." In another within the same response, you backtrack to "That's not what I said about UMD." That reads as moving goalposts, from here.

Comments about "If there's no MagicMart, you don't play a Rogue" read very much as "You're doing it wrong," indicating a belief in a One True Way to play D&D which, so far as I can tell, has almost nothing to do with where a Rogue sits on the Tier system, as any of those classes that aren't full casters that aren't just blasters or healbots will fail to meet what I can glean as your baseline standards for efficiency. In other words, your complaint about Rogues' placement has less to do with Rogues than about the 3.5 system as a whole, where only full casters that are in Tier 1 or 2 are "worth playing". Suffice it to say, I do not share that viewpoint.

Rogues, as I've seen them played, have more than 2 things they can do to contribute to the game; scouting, secondary DPR, social skills, trapfinding (at low levels and within specific other game parameters that are relatively common outside a heavy op-fu environment). Samurai, as I've seen them played, have 1.5 things they can contribute to the game, one of which (the autowin Intimidation shtick) requires more splatbook support and system mastery than I would call typical for an average game, and the other of which (melee damage) they don't do especially well, relative to other full BAB types, let alone casters or others with efficient DPR. That means that Rogues should be higher placed than Samurai.

Bovine Colonel

2011-10-15, 12:11 PM

Good grief, I'm reading through this and you guys, especially JaronK, Elric, and Amphetryon (and some others I probably forgot), are like paragons of patience or something. I don't even know.

Basket Burner

2011-10-15, 12:37 PM

Monk with VoP! :smallbiggrin:

Funny, but no.

Rushed for time, so I'm not quoting individually.

@Basket_Weaver:
In one comment, you make the blanket statement that "skills are overrated." In another within the same response, you backtrack to "That's not what I said about UMD." That reads as moving goalposts, from here.

Nope.

UMD is a skill that is as good as the things you can activate with it. In 3.5 there are good wands to use, don't get me wrong but I'm not seeing something whose best use involves a DC 20 check to be all that valuable. What happens is you boost it for a few levels, hit the desired benchmark and then ignore it because you already have all you need from it. The correct solution to this is to make there be important things that you would like to do with a DC higher than 20. The PF "solution" to this was to keep effects the same but raise the DCs to get those effects, making skills bad at all levels. They didn't do this with UMD I think, but they did with others. Such as the next one...

Without items, dipping into a higher-Tier class/PrC, or depending on a higher-Tier caster, how's our hypothetical Rogue getting Haste? Don't say UMD, because you've consistently argued that skills are nigh-useless

As what you said is not what I said, pointing out that what you said is not what I said is not moving anything.

So the Rogue could get a Wand of Haste, but given that Boots of Speed are about the same price... why would he?

Comments about "If there's no MagicMart, you don't play a Rogue" read very much as "You're doing it wrong," indicating a belief in a One True Way to play D&D which, so far as I can tell, has almost nothing to do with where a Rogue sits on the Tier system, as any of those classes that aren't full casters that aren't just blasters or healbots will fail to meet what I can glean as your baseline standards for efficiency. In other words, your complaint about Rogues' placement has less to do with Rogues than about the 3.5 system as a whole, where only full casters that are in Tier 1 or 2 are "worth playing". Suffice it to say, I do not share that viewpoint.

If there is no magicmart to supply all the equipment you need, you do not play characters that are highly dependent upon equipment, and you instead play characters that are not so equipment dependent and/or can make their own equipment. For all your talk of how I am moving goalposts you sure are shuffling a lot between the main topic here, some sort of One True Wayism thing, and about 10 other unrelated topics there.

If there is a magicmart, then you can play Rogues, and Fighters and so forth. And they will still be weak, but they are not completely hopeless.

Since this is a discussion about Rogues, I assume that the DM is not screwing over Rogues. I consider that to be a reasonable assumption, otherwise the question would not be on the table.

Rogues, as I've seen them played, have more than 2 things they can do to contribute to the game; scouting, secondary DPR, social skills, trapfinding (at low levels and within specific other game parameters that are relatively common outside a heavy op-fu environment). Samurai, as I've seen them played, have 1.5 things they can contribute to the game, one of which (the autowin Intimidation shtick) requires more splatbook support and system mastery than I would call typical for an average game, and the other of which (melee damage) they don't do especially well, relative to other full BAB types, let alone casters or others with efficient DPR. That means that Rogues should be higher placed than Samurai.

Scouting = skills. Already covered.
Damage = combat. Already covered.
Social stuff = skills.
Trapfinding = skills.

All of those things have already been covered.

Now the only reason why the Expert isn't at 6 is because of Catonkeyboard Focus. That is the only reason. Interestingly enough, Catonkeyboard Focus has a rate of returns much, much lower than just about any other source of damage.

Fearlocking things with Intimidate is a far more useful thing to do with skills than adding a small amount of damage. And yet, despite this the CW Samurai is at Tier 6 and not 5, while the Zhentarim Fighter (whose main thing is more or less the same thing) is at 4.

Melee damage wise, CW Samurai are bad. It'd still be easier to get them doing the damage they need to do than a Rogue though. That isn't my point though. It's that if you are going to overvalue skills, then at least do it consistently, and don't ignore the guy who actually has something halfway decent to do with them.

Still only halfway decent because anything immune to fear is immune, so it drops off just like other skills. It does take a bit longer to do so though.

As for large amounts of system mastery and splatbook support, that is par for the course if you are playing a non caster. Just like dips, and magic marts, and many other things that are required to make them function. You can complain about the CW Samurai taking a feat from one book and an item from another to do his thing with the Intimidate locking but then the Rogue, and Fighter, and everyone else that has no spellcasting ability is drawing from far more than their original source + 2 others just to contribute at all (and so is the CW Samurai, he just doesn't need them for that one trick) so at least be consistent in your bias against non spellcasting characters.

Incanur

2011-10-15, 12:43 PM

A lot of those people were playing Fighters, and getting horribly frustrated when the Druid's pet was doing better than they were. And at higher levels, they found out that their RP wasn't matching the crunch... they wanted to play Conan or Lancelot, and instead found they were worse than the puppy.

The thing is, even in core, fighters can do things animal companions can't. Spirited Charge plus Power Attack gives you the core version of the ubercharger. Not the best choice in a dungeon, but potent in other environments. I agree with you general, but optimized fighters can still dish out massive damage even in core only.

Angry Bob

2011-10-15, 01:00 PM

The thing is, even in core, fighters can do things animal companions can't. Spirited Charge plus Power Attack gives you the core version of the ubercharger. Not the best choice in a dungeon, but potent in other environments. I agree with you general, but optimized fighters can still dish out massive damage even in core only.

I don't think anyone was arguing that they couldn't do insane amounts of damage. There's the problem with charging, but I'm not getting into that right now.

But on the flip side, the animal companion can also do things that a fighter 20 can't. Pounce, tripping, and improved grab for starters, and more exotic stuff as you expand your sources. I think there's a dinosaur somewhere that spits blinding acid. If you stay in core as a fighter 20, you actually run out of decent feats to take. Level sixteen? I'll take, um... Weapon Focus: Greatsword?

Elric VIII

2011-10-15, 01:10 PM

The thing is, even in core, fighters can do things animal companions can't. Spirited Charge plus Power Attack gives you the core version of the ubercharger. Not the best choice in a dungeon, but potent in other environments. I agree with you general, but optimized fighters can still dish out massive damage even in core only.

Leafy the Druid: :smallamused: "So, my awakened Ape is riding my Dire Tiger AC, wielding a Lance."

McStabby the Fighter: :smallannoyed: "Yeah, well, he doesn't have Spirited Charge or Ride-by Attack."

Leafy the Druid: :smallbiggrin: "I'll give him 2 levels of Fighter, now he does. Also, the Tiger has pounce. My class features can have your class features."

McStabby the Fighter: :smallfurious:

Just saying...

Anarchy_Kanya

2011-10-15, 01:29 PM

Funny, but no.
I disagree.

navar100

2011-10-15, 01:34 PM

Anarchy_Kanya

2011-10-15, 01:43 PM

I don't understand what it has to do with anything (and particularly with this topic). Your whining about it won't make it stop. :smallconfused:

Little Brother

2011-10-15, 02:19 PM

Hey, guys, you're forgetting some things: The Feat Rogue:

Enjoy 9th level spells at level 12 or so.

Qwertystop

2011-10-15, 02:28 PM

Hey, guys, you're forgetting some things: The Feat Rogue:

Enjoy 9th level spells at level 12 or so.

How does this work? Doesn't that just replace Sneak Attack with Fighter Bonus Feats?

Hiro Protagonest

2011-10-15, 02:29 PM

Hey, guys, you're forgetting some things: The Feat Rogue:

Enjoy 9th level spells at level 12 or so.

I have no idea how that combo is done, but I've heard that the fighter is still tier 4 or 5 with it (keep in mind fighter is high tier 5).

Little Brother

2011-10-15, 02:37 PM

I have no idea how that combo is done, but I've heard that the fighter is still tier 4 or 5 with it (keep in mind fighter is high tier 5).Works just like the 9th level spell fighter:

Caster (ANYTHING)

1 magical training
h practiced spellcaster
t eldritch corruption
3 heighten spell
6 sanctum spell
9 earth sense
12 earth spell
15 extra slot
18 extra spel

Or:
Aenhoon Illumian (FEAT THINGY)

Magical Training (PGtF) You can (spontaneously) cast a couple of 0 level spells per day. Caster Level 1.
Heighten Spell (PH)
X Bloodline (Dragon Comp.) Add nine known spells
Arcane Disciple (CD) Something with Miracle.
Planar Touchstone: Catalogs of Enlightenment--Sun Domain (PlH, DLCS) This one is thanks to Darrin. The Sun domain in the DLCS grants TU as a cleric.
Extra Turning (PH)
Earth Sense (RoS) Prereq.
Earth Spell (RoS) +1 level when using Heighten
Extra Slot* (CA) 9th level slots. Enjoy.

Curmudgeon

2011-10-15, 02:54 PM

Planar Touchstone: Catalogs of Enlightenment--Sun Domain (PlH, DLCS) This one is thanks to Darrin. The Sun domain in the DLCS grants TU as a cleric.

Bogus, I'm afraid.
The Catalogues of Enlightenment

Base Ability: Choose a cleric domain; you gain the granted power of that domain. The Sun domain in Dragonlance Campaign Setting (page 104) isn't a Cleric domain.

Sun Domain
Deities: none (Mystic only)

The Mystic Sun domain and Cleric Sun domain (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spellLists/clericDomains.htm#sunDomain) have different granted powers.

AMFV

2011-10-15, 03:42 PM

Works just like the 9th level spell fighter:

Caster (ANYTHING)

1 magical training
h practiced spellcaster
t eldritch corruption
3 heighten spell
6 sanctum spell
9 earth sense
12 earth spell
15 extra slot
18 extra spel

Or:
Aenhoon Illumian (FEAT THINGY)

Magical Training (PGtF) You can (spontaneously) cast a couple of 0 level spells per day. Caster Level 1.
Heighten Spell (PH)
X Bloodline (Dragon Comp.) Add nine known spells
Arcane Disciple (CD) Something with Miracle.
Planar Touchstone: Catalogs of Enlightenment--Sun Domain (PlH, DLCS) This one is thanks to Darrin. The Sun domain in the DLCS grants TU as a cleric.
Extra Turning (PH)
Earth Sense (RoS) Prereq.
Earth Spell (RoS) +1 level when using Heighten
Extra Slot* (CA) 9th level slots. Enjoy.

Just because you know the spells doesn't give you any ability to cast them. Heighten spell lets you boost lower level spells into YOUR higher level slots, you still need the higher level slots. Using the magical training makes you a pseudosorcerer of CL 1, practiced does increase this to 5... but you still DON'T gain higher level slots... just a better CL. So you can heighten spells, and take Con damage from it... but no spells higher than level 0...

Incanur

2011-10-15, 04:10 PM

I don't think anyone was arguing that they couldn't do insane amounts of damage.

If the core-only druid's animal companion is really overshadowing the core-only fighter, either the fighter isn't optimized or it's well past dog level. Being able to claim marginal superiority over another PC's class feature is cold comfort, but it's there.

But on the flip side, the animal companion can also do things that a fighter 20 can't.

Here's the thing: a lot of people don't play til 20, including the developers. :smallamused:

Qwertystop

2011-10-15, 04:11 PM

With those particular feats, is it a requirement to be a Fighter? None of them are Fighter Bonus Feats, and they're all at normal feat levels anyway. You could do all that with any class.

I suppose Fighter or Feat Rogue does give you more feats, so spending all your normal feats on that doesn't hurt as much...

Amphetryon

2011-10-15, 04:12 PM

I'm done. Enjoy your notions.

Basket Burner

2011-10-15, 05:21 PM

If the core-only druid's animal companion is really overshadowing the core-only fighter, either the fighter isn't optimized or it's well past dog level. Being able to claim marginal superiority over another PC's class feature is cold comfort, but it's there.

In core, the Fighter cannot really optimize. Though being inferior to someone else's class feature is secondary to being inferior to your opponents.

Here's the thing: a lot of people don't play til 20, including the developers. :smallamused:

It is also true at the levels before that.

Incanur

2011-10-15, 05:42 PM

A fighter would have to work at it to deal less damage than a riding dog's 1d6+3. The dog might have better AC with barding and possibly better saves.

Hiro Protagonest

2011-10-15, 05:47 PM

The dog might have better AC with barding and possibly better saves.

And gets a free trip attack.

Provengreil

2011-10-15, 08:04 PM

@basketburner:

--snip--
If there is no magicmart to supply all the equipment you need, you do not play characters that are highly dependent upon equipment, and you instead play characters that are not so equipment dependent and/or can make their own equipment. For all your talk of how I am moving goalposts you sure are shuffling a lot between the main topic here, some sort of One True Wayism thing, and about 10 other unrelated topics there.

If there is a magicmart, then you can play Rogues, and Fighters and so forth. And they will still be weak, but they are not completely hopeless.

Since this is a discussion about Rogues, I assume that the DM is not screwing over Rogues. I consider that to be a reasonable assumption, otherwise the question would not be on the table.

the way i see it, very little of what you consider to be necessary is actually necessary. helpful? most definitely, but not always necessary.

what set of items in magicmart is so incredibly useful that all rogues must have them to function? because i'm thinking about their class features and none of them require anything (SAs can be unarmed, right?). you have no items, but you can still sneak, pick locks, talk. i may be in error, but your argument suggests wrongbadfun for anyone who plays a rogue without the aforementioned item set.

Scouting = skills. Already covered.
Damage = combat. Already covered.
Social stuff = skills.
Trapfinding = skills.

All of those things have already been covered.

No, they have been brought up, and, by you, dismissed as opposed to discussed. i note you dodged my previous question on skills; i asked why you say they are nonfunctional, you moved the goalposts to not worthwhile. i asked how climb describing the climbing rules was wrong, you said it sucked. As has been stated before, i think your problem is with the system, not the class.

Now the only reason why the Expert isn't at 6 is because of Catonkeyboard Focus. That is the only reason. Interestingly enough, Catonkeyboard Focus has a rate of returns much, much lower than just about any other source of damage.

Fearlocking things with Intimidate is a far more useful thing to do with skills than adding a small amount of damage. And yet, despite this the CW Samurai is at Tier 6 and not 5, while the Zhentarim Fighter (whose main thing is more or less the same thing) is at 4.

I may be in error, but i believe that while the entire CW samurai chassis is good only for fearlocking, the Z. fighter can fearlock and do other fightery things. greater, if still low, versatility with nothing of any significance removed as opportunity cost gets that tier bump. also, fighters are often considered the higher end of T5, so any class features at all usually pushes it over the edge if done right.

personally, i think the theory was sound(y'know, use the feats to make it do a set of trick chosen by the player, not the class), but it was let down by feats being almost universally inferior to class features.

Melee damage wise, CW Samurai are bad. It'd still be easier to get them doing the damage they need to do than a Rogue though. That isn't my point though. It's that if you are going to overvalue skills, then at least do it consistently, and don't ignore the guy who actually has something halfway decent to do with them.

so the samurai's use of his couple skill points is to be valued more than the rogue's 8? what you're suggesting is a tier bump because a class can do one thing. you have admitted the samurai's damage is bad, and that they fearlock. a single build does not get you a tier bump, and the samurai is really badly equipped to do anything else.

Still only halfway decent because anything immune to fear is immune, so it drops off just like other skills. It does take a bit longer to do so though.

As for large amounts of system mastery and splatbook support, that is par for the course if you are playing a non caster. Just like dips, and magic marts, and many other things that are required to make them function. You can complain about the CW Samurai taking a feat from one book and an item from another to do his thing with the Intimidate locking but then the Rogue, and Fighter, and everyone else that has no spellcasting ability is drawing from far more than their original source + 2 others just to contribute at all (and so is the CW Samurai, he just doesn't need them for that one trick) so at least be consistent in your bias against non spellcasting characters.

Function. you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
see, even the worst class in the game, so bad that it's tier 7, the truenamer, does in fact function. it is just incredibly hard to do anything of value while playing this class.

as for system mastery and drawing from sources, everyone draws from multiple sources. most caster builds take spells and items from here and there. So i'm not really seeing a bias. not to mention we've managed to discuss ToB a lot in this thread, and it's pretty much self contained, except for items.

@angrybob:

I don't think anyone was arguing that they couldn't do insane amounts of damage. There's the problem with charging, but I'm not getting into that right now.

But on the flip side, the animal companion can also do things that a fighter 20 can't. Pounce, tripping, and improved grab for starters, and more exotic stuff as you expand your sources. I think there's a dinosaur somewhere that spits blinding acid. If you stay in core as a fighter 20, you actually run out of decent feats to take. Level sixteen? I'll take, um... Weapon Focus: Greatsword?

when my group says core, we usually include PHB 2 as well in that designation, so you can squeeze some more out of that. but yeah, i agree with your main point.

quotes spoiled, replies spoiled within quotes for brevity.

ThiefInTheNight

2011-10-15, 10:43 PM

The problem is the Tier system around here is often used for just that.
[Citation Needed]

I have not seen what you describe at all.

ThiefInTheNight

2011-10-15, 10:46 PM

What would be rude is if a player says he's playing a paladin and wants help on what to do after he gets Spirited Charge then someone tells him Paladin sucks and he should be playing a Crusader instead or better off as a Cleric with some Domain and Divine Metamagic or play a Druid so he can be a bear riding a bear.
I disagree.

What is rude is telling people that they're not allowed to post their thoughts and opinions on the topic in a discussion forum. That is rude. The rules specifically state that no one "owns" threads. You don't make the rules just because you started a thread. If the topic is "what's some good ideas for my paladin?" then "better classes than paladin that do the same thing" is a perfectly on-topic and relevant piece of discussion, and it is rude for you to call others rude for saying so.

Basket Burner

2011-10-16, 08:00 AM

A fighter would have to work at it to deal less damage than a riding dog's 1d6+3. The dog might have better AC with barding and possibly better saves.

Hm.

Size/Type: Medium Animal
Hit Dice: 3d8+12 (25 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 50 ft. (10 squares)
Armor Class: 19 (+2 Dex, +4 natural, 3 barding), touch 12, flat-footed 17
Base Attack/Grapple: +2/+6
Attack: Bite +6 melee (1d6+6)
Full Attack: Bite +6 melee (1d6+6)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: —
Special Qualities: Combatative mount, low-light vision, scent
Saves: Fort +7, Ref +5, Will +3
Abilities: Str 18, Dex 15, Con 18, Int 2, Wis 14, Cha 6
Skills: Jump +14, Listen +7, Spot +7, Swim +5, Survival +2*
Feats: Alertness, TrackB

I would take that over a 1st level Fighter any day. I would also take it over a second level Fighter. By 3rd level, animal companion benefits start coming in. And since Warbeast is a template you can add yourself, with a low (as in low level) skill check...

I would like to apply to Proven, but the nested quotes inside of quotes makes it impossible to do so.

Killer Angel

2011-10-16, 08:32 AM

If the topic is "what's some good ideas for my paladin?" then "better classes than paladin that do the same thing" is a perfectly on-topic and relevant piece of discussion, and it is rude for you to call others rude for saying so.

Maybe it's not rude, but it's not nice: it's a way of saying "you're playing it wrong". You're not giving suggestion on the paladin.

Amphetryon

2011-10-16, 08:43 AM

I disagree.

What is rude is telling people that they're not allowed to post their thoughts and opinions on the topic in a discussion forum. That is rude. The rules specifically state that no one "owns" threads. You don't make the rules just because you started a thread. If the topic is "what's some good ideas for my paladin?" then "better classes than paladin that do the same thing" is a perfectly on-topic and relevant piece of discussion, and it is rude for you to call others rude for saying so.From Caelic's "10 Commandments of Practical Optimization" from the WotC forums back in the day:

9. Respect the parameters of the request.
This used to be a given, but people have been backsliding a lot lately. Someone comes on and says, "Hey, I'd like to play a Bard 4/Cleric 4. Can anyone help me optimize this? He immediately gets responses which boil down to, "Only an idiot would play that! You should be playing Pun-Pun, he's MUCH more powerful!" Sometimes they're more nicely phrased than this, other times they're not.

The point is: people aren't offering him suggestions on how to make his character of choice better. They're telling him that he's "wrong" for playing that character, and that he should be playing a different character.

The same goes for threads in which the poster explains the DM's house rules and restrictions at the beginning of the thread. More often than not, if these restrictions amount to more than "No infinite power at first level," someone will respond with the oh-so-helpful suggestion "Your DM sucks. Quit his game and never talk to him again."

I only wish that were hyperbole. It's word-for-word from a thread a while back.

Optimization is about working within the rules to greatest effect. ANYONE can optimize in an environment with no restrictions. It takes skill to optimize where options are limited.

Threads like these should be seen as an opportunity to demonstrate that skill...not belittle the poster or the DM.

PersonMan

2011-10-16, 08:49 AM

Maybe it's not rude, but it's not nice: it's a way of saying "you're playing it wrong". You're not giving suggestion on the paladin.

Then again, to bring up a metaphor from earlier, it's therefore also rude to tell someone that hammers > screwdrivers when it comes to hammering, because that's a way of saying "you're playing doing it wrong". You're not giving suggestions on the screwdriver.

If your goal is X(whether that's being a holy warrior or driving a nail into wood) and ask for help with Method A, then is suggesting Method B(crusader or hammer), which allows you to accomplish this goal far more easily and efficiently, not nice?

Plus, it's difficult to tell if the one who asks "help my paladin be effective" knows about ToB or if they've decided to play a Paladin, rather than just being a paladin, unless they say so. If they do say "yeah, Crusader looks good but DM says no ToB", then suggesting Crusader doesn't help. If, however, they say nothing about the books, then saying "hey, the Crusader class in ToB makes a great paladin. If you don't have ToB, then [blah blah blah]" isn't really a bad suggestion, and is more in line what I see here.

Killer Angel

2011-10-16, 09:35 AM

Then again, to bring up a metaphor from earlier, it's therefore also rude to tell someone that hammers > screwdrivers when it comes to hammering, because that's a way of saying "you're playing doing it wrong". You're not giving suggestions on the screwdriver.

If your goal is X(whether that's being a holy warrior or driving a nail into wood) and ask for help with Method A, then is suggesting Method B(crusader or hammer), which allows you to accomplish this goal far more easily and efficiently, not nice?

Plus, it's difficult to tell if the one who asks "help my paladin be effective" knows about ToB or if they've decided to play a Paladin, rather than just being a paladin, unless they say so. If they do say "yeah, Crusader looks good but DM says no ToB", then suggesting Crusader doesn't help. If, however, they say nothing about the books, then saying "hey, the Crusader class in ToB makes a great paladin. If you don't have ToB, then [blah blah blah]" isn't really a bad suggestion, and is more in line what I see here.

Caelic's ninth Commandment of Practical Optimization, has already been posted.
The line between "offer some help" and "being rude", lies in what was the initial request, and what were the sequent suggestions.

ThiefInTheNight

2011-10-16, 09:38 AM

From Caelic's "10 Commandments of Practical Optimization" from the WotC forums back in the day:
And I generally do. But that doesn't make it rude not to. It does make it rude to tell others that they're being rude when they are just discussing the topic.

And if I can save someone from the horror that is playing, or playing with, a Paladin, then I think I'm being quite nice.

The fact is, most optimization threads come up without enough information; it's one thing when ToB is explicitly stated to be unavailable, but quite another when it's just "I want to play a paladin". That's not "I want to play a Paladin 20", that's far less specific. If someone says "I want to play a Paladin 20, and yes I know the problems with that but it's what I want to do," well, I don't respond at all because I have nothing useful to say.

Nor is it horribly off-topic to discuss what the OP could do if he had a supplement available; it's pretty common to say "oh, it's a shame you don't have XYZ; the feat ABC would be really useful" or whatever, and I don't see them being called rude.

But mostly, this is about someone tossing around this term — rude — that is quite negative, even insulting, perhaps, as if it were an absolute fact, just because people don't agree with his or her own priorities. And that is most certainly rude.