Pathfinder I Challenge all of you to prove my friends wrong! [Archive]

13ones

2017-08-20, 08:19 AM

legomaster00156

2017-08-20, 08:24 AM

Well, I mean, anything you can build with an Unchained Rogue, you can build with a basic Rogue. Your friends are right, though. With the advent of Unchained, there is no reason whatsoever to play the original Rogue.

Grod_The_Giant

2017-08-20, 08:45 AM

I mean, you can build a Rogue that's effective, but I'm with your friends on this one-- at just about any given level of optimization, a Vivisectionist Alchemist is going to be better. (At Sneak Attack, at utility, at trapfinding, at stealth...)

Metahuman1

2017-08-20, 08:54 AM

I, hate to tell you this dude, but unless the game is painfully low op or the DM is REALLY coddling the party to the point they effectively don't have player agency, your friends are pretty much correct.

Necroticplague

2017-08-20, 09:09 AM

Sorry, but your buddies right. Sure, you might be able to build an effective rogue, but you can always build a more effective vivisector.

Metahuman1

2017-08-20, 09:34 AM

Rynjin

2017-08-20, 09:42 AM

Let me put it to you this way: Core PF Rogue is so ****ty that even Paizo admitted it was too weak and released a straight upgrade to it in a book.

The company that takes the phrase "Martials can't have nice things" as a ****ing CHALLENGE to the point that the same book released a nerf for the Barbarian (a staunchly middle of the road class whose shining grace is that it can ALMOST hang with the big boys like Bard and Inquisitor even though it can't cast spells) ostensibly because simple addition was too complicated for people still thought the core Rogue was too weak and needed a straight unequivocal buff.

AvatarVecna

2017-08-20, 09:44 AM

If Rogue was able to compete, making a new and better version of it would be a weird decision. Unchained Rogue exists for a reason.

Kurald Galain

2017-08-20, 09:55 AM

- Core books only [Core Rule book, Advance Player, Race, Class. Ultimate Equipment, Magic, Combat. All Bestiaries.]
That's an interesting definition of "core" you have there :smallbiggrin:

Anyway. A straightforward rogue/20 that uses the TWF line of feats and that has a flanking buddy in the party can contribute in the sense that he has decent skills and will do substantial damage in combat (e.g. six attacks for 40 damage). He will most likely be better than any cavalier, gunslinger, kineticist, or chained monk in the party. That doesn't change the fact that a Slayer, Vivichemist, or Ninja using the exact same feats will do everything that rogue does, only better.

So you and your friends are using different definitions of the word "worthless".

Necroticplague

2017-08-20, 10:12 AM

At most your dipping Rogue for 1 level on pretty much any of those classes, and only for Trapfinding, and even then you might be better served dipping one of the other classes that has Trap Finding, like Vigilante.

I could have sworn that there was a trait that basically gave you trapfinding, so any skill monkey can have it.

Rynjin

2017-08-20, 10:19 AM

That's an interesting definition of "core" you have there :smallbiggrin:

Anyway. A straightforward rogue/20 that uses the TWF line of feats and that has a flanking buddy in the party can contribute in the sense that he has decent skills and will do substantial damage in combat (e.g. six attacks for 40 damage). He will most likely be better than any cavalier, gunslinger, kineticist, or chained monk in the party. That doesn't change the fact that a Slayer, Vivichemist, or Ninja using the exact same feats will do everything that rogue does, only better.

So you and your friends are using different definitions of the word "worthless".

I'm actually not sure TWFing is worth it on Rogue. It's a huge damage boost but I think the accuracy issues make it a marginal DPR increase at best. Haven't bothered with building a Rogue in a long time though.

I could have sworn that there was a trait that basically gave you trapfinding, so any skill monkey can have it.

That's a Campaign Trait; It only applies to the Mummy's Mask AP.

There is Aram Zey's Focus though. A 2nd level spell negates the entire Rogue's niche.

Eldonauran

2017-08-20, 11:28 AM

I have to agree with the rest of the board. Unchained Rogue is simply better than the chained rogue. It gets exactly the same abilities and then a few more thrown in (finesse training and dehibilitating strikes). I personally dislike the Dex to damage built in, but that's just me.

Grod_The_Giant

2017-08-20, 11:41 AM

I could have sworn that there was a trait that basically gave you trapfinding, so any skill monkey can have it.
It's a campaign trait, so it may or may not be available, but it's also a minor skill boost (+1/2 level) in Pathfinder, rather than the requirement it is in 3.5.

Footman

2017-08-20, 11:46 AM

I am sorry, to say this, but the Core Rogue is indeed the weakest Class in the Game. You should really go with the Unchained Rogue, which is just straight up better and fun, since the Rogue only got very good abilties added to him. Limiting to Core hurts Rogues and Fighters the most, because most of thier awesome abilities got only added later, while the Spellcasters still have enough overpowered Spells with core only.

Honestly your poor little Rogue stands little chance, against most things.
You could go into the Assasin Prestiege Class, and pump your Int, as well as your Dex.
Here is the Link to the Relevant guide. Also get yourself a Race with Fly Speed, like a Strix, Gathlain, in the best case be a Slyph and take those two feats.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VfVbEOKnZrQ3P4V_WC6RNn4hQGjOWbIxc0aXIrHergM/edit?pli=1
If you Build your Assassin correctly, the only things that is able to Detect you will are thoughtsense (get your Wizard to cast Mind Blank or pay for a permanent one), and Lifesense. (No way around Lifesense but few Monsters have it can PCs can't get it.)

Assassin will not win you any straight up fights, but if they don't know you are there, you can kill almost anything that doesn't have a stupid high Fort save. Casters should be your Favorite target, you can kill any Caster that isn't a Diviner Wizard, or doesn't have Moment of Prescient casted on him. Get yourself a Dimensional Anchor Enchantment on your Weapon, to prevent Teleports should things go wrong.

Also if your DM allows you to get the "Hellcat Stealth" Feat (None Core, its from Cheliax Empire of Devils; it allows you to hide while observed and in bright light, meaning EVERYWHERE, at a -10 Penality), combine it with the "Spring Attack"Feat. If you do that, you can move in, do your Death Attack, move out and be undetectable again, because your Stealth is just so stupid high.

Also get yourself a Cacodaemon Familiar, to eat the Souls of the Spellcasters you manage to kill, otherwise they will just wake up in their Clone and be pissed.

Mehangel

2017-08-20, 11:57 AM

I also have to agree with everyone else here and say that your friends are right, with the release of the Unchained Rogue, there is no reason at all to play a core Rogue.

Grod_The_Giant

2017-08-20, 12:09 PM

I am sorry, to say this, but the Core Rogue is indeed the weakest Class in the Game.
This is probably going too far, though. The Rogue isn't useless or unable to contribute; there are just other classes that can do similar things more effectively. Like how the Fighter gets overshadowed by initiator classes.

Eldonauran

2017-08-20, 12:51 PM

This is probably going too far, though. The Rogue isn't useless or unable to contribute; there are just other classes that can do similar things more effectively. Like how the Fighter gets overshadowed by initiator classes.
True. Chained rogues are far from useless and can contribute fairly well, it's just the Unchained does exactly the same thing, with the same abilities, better. However, I think we should leave 3rd party classes out of the discussion. It creates an even greater deviation in the playing field.

If could offer a few suggestions to make a chained rogue more useful but they rely on source books you haven't listed (such as a sneak-attack-on-charge-with-imp. vital strike) or only use the rogue for four levels with a spell casting class being the majority of the build. But, adding unchained to it would still make it a better build.

Psyren

2017-08-20, 01:05 PM

Chained rogue isn't worthless, but you should really only be building one for (a) a core-only game or (b) some kind of self-imposed challenge. Unchained Rogue outclasses it in every way.

Kurald Galain

2017-08-20, 01:24 PM

I'm actually not sure TWFing is worth it on Rogue. It's a huge damage boost but I think the accuracy issues make it a marginal DPR increase at best.

That's an interesting question. Let's do some math on that.

Suppose your base chance to hit is 70%, and average damage is 40 (or 8d6 sneak attack, +4 magic weapon, +8 dexterity). Then regular attacks at level 15 will do (0.7 + 0.45 + 0.2) * 40 = 54 DPR. On the other hand, a TWF sequence will do (0.6 + 0.6 + 0.35 + 0.35 + 0.1 + 0.1) * 40 = 84 DPR. Turns out this holds true for any to-hit chance between 5% and 100%.

So yes, TWF is a good plan for any class that deals high amounts of sneak attack damage.

theboss

2017-08-20, 02:04 PM

Well base 20 level Rogue is kinda weak. But if you can multi-class then i suggest the following build:
Rogue 11, Fighter 2, Invisable Blade 5, Champion of Corellon 2.

11 levels of Rogue gives you the following abilities :
Evasion
Improved Uncany dodge
6d6 sneak attack damage
Special ability ( Crippiling strike for example).

2 levels of fighter will give you 2 extra feats, you're gonna need them for champion of corellon, and full BAB.

5 levels of Invisable blade will give you the following abilites:
Full BAB.
3d6 sneak attack damage
Feinting as a free action, which would help tremendously with 1 vs 1 combat.
Bleeding wound

2 levels of champion of corellon will give the following abilites:
full BAB. also strong saves are Will and Fort.
Elegant strike (adding dex to damage with some weapons, and adding str also)
Bonus feat.

So we're looking overall for about (1d6 (base) + 9d6(sneak attack) + 10 (dex) + X (magic items, str modifier, other modifiers). so that's 45 + X damage per strike. With GTWF we're looking on 7 strikes. not inculding haste and other kind of effects. so that's 7*(45 + X) = 315 + 7X per round without flanking buddy needed since you can feint as a FREE ACTION.
Unreachable reflax save, good fort save and poor will save.

As for selecting feats I'm afraid im too lost to help with that. Haven't played a rogue for a long time. But there's huge amount of forums on feats for rogue and you're more than welcome to read.
Anyway, your friends are wrong. Rogue is a decent class with a big variety of options to help and support the team.

Edit: * you can also dip in swashbuckler to add intelligence to damage which also help with your damage per round and increase your BAB. if you choose to do so the build is gonna look like this : (Rogue 8, Swashbuckler 3, Fighter 2, Invisible Blade 5, Champion of Corellon 2). *The order doesnt matter .

Rynjin

2017-08-20, 03:34 PM

It's a campaign trait, so it may or may not be available, but it's also a minor skill boost (+1/2 level) in Pathfinder, rather than the requirement it is in 3.5.

Trapfinding is require to disable magical traps, and to even FIND glyph/symbol spells.

That's an interesting question. Let's do some math on that.

Suppose your base chance to hit is 70%, and average damage is 40 (or 8d6 sneak attack, +4 magic weapon, +8 dexterity). Then regular attacks at level 15 will do (0.7 + 0.45 + 0.2) * 40 = 54 DPR. On the other hand, a TWF sequence will do (0.6 + 0.6 + 0.35 + 0.35 + 0.1 + 0.1) * 40 = 84 DPR. Turns out this holds true for any to-hit chance between 5% and 100%.

So yes, TWF is a good plan for any class that deals high amounts of sneak attack damage.

Nice. Happy to be wrong in this case.

This is probably going too far, though. The Rogue isn't useless or unable to contribute; there are just other classes that can do similar things more effectively. Like how the Fighter gets overshadowed by initiator classes.

But it is less able to contribute than any other class in the game. Remember that Initiator classes are not 1st party PF (as evidenced by the abilities being well thought out and relatively balanced, with devs that can take criticism and use it to make a better product).

Fighters are outshone by many classes, but they ARE excellent and simple to build damage machines, so they have a niche as one of the best (all day without buffs) damage dealers even though classes that trade in that 20% DPR for 300% more utility are way better overall.

Rogues don't really have a niche, particularly with the release of the Slayer.

Florian

2017-08-21, 12:51 AM

Rynjin

2017-08-21, 01:37 AM

The "chained" Rogue still has the advantage to run pretty resource friendly, both concerning equipment and how to allocate PB. Classes with rogue-like archetypes are mostly partial casters and must at least keep their main casting attribute covered, going slightly MAD this way. The "unchained" Rogue is pretty much geared towards DEX, which makes allocating anything into STR a useless investment, but will prove problematic with any feat that needs STR as a prerequisite. A side-effect, especially on the lower levels when damage type DR is still common, is that relying too much on Finesse and pure SA makes for a very inflexible rogue.

In sum, certain builds work smoother with the "chained" Rogue, especially the STR-based ones, like the falchion-wielding H-Orc Barbarian/Rogue with Surprise Follow-Through or a Fighter/Rogue/Red Mantis Assassin.

There are literally no builds that work with Chained Rogue but not Unchained. The UnRogue has ALL of the same abilities PLUS more. You can make a Str based UnRogue as easily as a core Rogue by just...putting points in Str.

I'm also not seeing how "relying on Finesse and pure SA" is different than Str and pure SA. You get Dex to damage with the UnRogue so you have the same attribute bonuses. If you want Power Attack it takes minimal Str investment and you're even regardless.

Any advantage you think the core Rogue has is purely psychological from not wanting to "waste" a class ability.

Pugwampy

2017-08-21, 03:42 AM

Crake

2017-08-21, 04:21 AM

Necroticplague

2017-08-21, 04:29 AM

The rogues job is not combat . He is there to make you life very easy in a locked and trapped dungeon . He is great for scouting

..........and robbing the nice NPC town .

Its a specific sort of player that enjoys this .

And what about the rogue class makes it unique enough to stay? You can get basically all the utility in that area from a one-level dip. Anyone can pick up Stealth and Disable Device. And have extra benefits beside.

Serafina

2017-08-21, 04:41 AM

Scouting is great - if it works. Which is pretty binary: Either your stealth-skill is good enough that enemies don't see you and you can scout them out and get back to your group - or it isn't.
If it isn't, then it's very likely those enemies will be able to kill you. If they can't, you're either faster than them, or they weren't a real threat in the first place.

And notice how the Rogue basically gets no boosts to Stealth? Or movement speeds?
The Rogue has a lot of skill points, but doesn't actually get any bonus to skills outside of some talents. So anyone with Stealth as a class skill and enough skill points to put one there every level is exactly as good as a Rogue at it. And other classes either get a bonus to Stealth-checks, abilities such as Hide in Plain Sight (which the chained rogue only gets for select terrains), or Invisibility-effects - or even all three, for Investigators. And that just makes them way better scouts.
The same goes for movement. At most, the chained Rogue gets a climb speed - but other than that, they're stuck with a 30-foot speed with no in-class way to enhance that, meaning that a lot of enemies will catch up with them. Other classes get higher movement speeds, flight, or even outright teleportation - just a dimension door would be enough to get away if spotted, the Rogue doesn't get anything like it.

Also, Scouting isn't just about spotting the enemy, it's also about knowing what the enemy is capable of. In other words, Knowledge-skills. Which, again, the chained Rogue isn't better at that any other character with the skills for it - and they don't even have any Intelligence-synergy. An Investigator just beats them by a mile, but even a Slayer has a good reason to invest into Intelligence and a bonus to Knowledge-skills.

The only part where the Rogue has any sort of advantage on scouting is bypassing traps while doing so - except several other classes can do that just as well, and a simple Detect Magic is just as good for spotting magical traps.

So really, the chained Rogue isn't great at anything when compared to other classes. The Unchained Rogue is obviously better, since it's literary just the same class with extra abilities. Even then, very often you'll be better off with an Investigator, Vigilante, Slayer, or some other class.

Eldariel

2017-08-21, 07:22 AM

Dannir

2017-08-21, 07:51 AM

You don't even need to go all the way to Wizard to get a better scout than the Rogue. If you think about it, the Monk would be a better scout.

No, really. They're less likely to wear armor at all, so that's ACP gone. Higher wisdom means more perception, which always helps. They have fast movement. Their higher saves means they're less likely to be killed by traps they do spring. Or by monsters who do manage to catch them at a corner, since a Rogue is one Hold Person away from getting swarmed. If they just had more skill points so they could invest in stealth...

And of course, there's the Bard. Who has spells. Including Expeditous Retreat. And Gaseous Form. And various forms of Invisibility. And is likely better at covering his weaknesses with Use Magic Device on account of wanting a high Charisma.

Even a Barbarian can make a nearly decent scout in a pinch, with fast movement and trap sense to avoid getting murdered too hard by any trap they might spring.

And I'm not even glancing at divination spells there.

The point here is that there are things the Rogue is good at, but when it comes to scouting, over half the core classes would have him beat. And the Unchained Rogue would still be better at every single bit of it. And so, often, would the other skillmonkeys, except specifically for traps, due solely to Trapfinding. The core Rogue just fails to be spectacular in any manner, unfortunately.

Sagetim

2017-08-21, 08:09 AM

So my friends are of the opinion that core rogues [not unchained] are basically worthless. Their argument is if you want a Sneak Attack combatant that things like Slayer, Vivisectionist Alchemist, and Ninja are all better classes. If you want stealth that Ninja, Ranger, and literally anything that gets Invisibility is better. Even skill wise they are outclasses by Bards and now Investigators.

So my challenge to you, Giants, is to prove that the rogue can still fit into high-fantasy, 25 point buy, 20th level party.

The rules are simple:
- Core books only [Core Rule book, Advance Player, Race, Class. Ultimate Equipment, Magic, Combat. All Bestiaries.] \
- 25 point buy. No Variant Race templates [so no variant Dhampirs, Teiflings, or Asamars].
- Rogue must be the base of the build but you can multi-class or go into prestige classes.
- Needs to be something to hold its own in combat with other 20th level characters and still make an impact.

Outside of that I'd say go nuts.

I don't need to build a rogue to prove they are useful at high level. Their stealth is mundane. Which means that if someone is relying on invisibility to hide from someone, things like detect magic, see invisibility, trueseeing, and so on work against them. Stealth is just stealth, if you don't have perception, you're not going to beat it. Especially if some format of hide in plain sight is involved.

That said, Rangers may be good at stealth too, but they don't have sneak attacking, and other classes may get a handful of sneak attack dice, but from my recollection, only the ninja rivals the rogue in how many sneak attack dice they get. So this doesn't come down to a comparison of rogue vs everything else, it comes down to rogue vs ninja. And isn't Ninja supposed to replace Rogue for oriental games anyway? So you're generally not going to be seeing ninja vs rogue fights going on, or have an option between them anyway.

I don't have time to do an in depth comparison right now, but things to look at are: chassis (hit die, bab, saves, skill points), class features, what can counter the strengths of the class? what are weaknesses that can be exploited of the class?

Grod_The_Giant

2017-08-21, 08:21 AM

Stealth is just stealth, if you don't have perception, you're not going to beat it.
But also this is Pathfinder. Stealth as a class skill isn't just a Trait away, it's only a +3 bonus if you get it. The Rogue doesn't have any particular claim on being "good at Stealth" beyond a good Dex score.

AvatarVecna

2017-08-21, 08:28 AM

But also this is Pathfinder. Stealth as a class skill isn't just a Trait away, it's only a +3 bonus if you get it. The Rogue doesn't have any particular claim on being "good at Stealth" beyond a good Dex score.

And usually the trait giving proficiency also gives a bonus, so the difference between a character who starts with Stealth in-class and one who gets it via a trait is that the one who gets it via a trait will have a bigger bonus and the other will have an extra trait.

Of course, going Goblin makes Stealth super-easy early on regardless of class, but there you go. :smalltongue:

Psyren

2017-08-21, 08:38 AM

Trapfinding is require to disable magical traps, and to even FIND glyph/symbol spells.

For the former you can use other methods, like dispels or antimagic. The latter statement is false (you're thinking of 3.5.)

CharonsHelper

2017-08-21, 08:44 AM

So yes, TWF is a good plan for any class that deals high amounts of sneak attack static damage.

In terms of pure DPR, at higher levels TWF is just the best. (with drawbacks of feat cost, DR issues, and less damage without full-attacking) But it's especially true of classes with huge static damage bonuses such as SA classes and Samurai (via challenge - which will nearly always be up once they grab Chain Challenge at 7).

Serafina

2017-08-21, 08:46 AM

Mundane stealth also fails against a lot of high-level things, such as Blindsense. There is a few methods to beat that, but they're not more accessible to the Rogue than to others.
And the difference between a 20th-level Wizard who got a +1&class skill Stealth trait, and a Rogue, is literary just the difference in their Dexterity-score. Given the way enhancement bonuses scale, that's likely just a difference of starting with 14 vs. 18, not putting the level increases there, and not having an innate bonus. So the Rogue is better by about +5 - while the Wizard can turn Invisible, turn ethereal, teleport, use illusions, or just transform into a tiny creature that's way harder to spot and easily makes up the difference.

Worse yet, if a difference of +5 is supposed to be a strong argument in favor of the Rogue - then you have to content with classes like the Investigator, who get just such a bonus when compared to the Rogue, and other goodies still.

The same goes for every other skill by the way, with Trapfinding being the only bonus the Rogue gets, and even that not being exclusive.

Kurald Galain

2017-08-21, 08:49 AM

It goes to show that, since everyone gets feats and skills, "having lots of feats" or "having lots of skills" is nowhere near sufficient to make a class stand out.

Grod_The_Giant

2017-08-21, 09:18 AM

It goes to show that, since everyone gets feats and skills, "having lots of feats" or "having lots of skills" is nowhere near sufficient to make a class stand out.
Yup. In 3.5 too. The best skill-users are guys who get lots of skills and external boosts, like 3.5 Bards rocking Bardic Knack and Inspiration, or Investigators. (Just... all of Investigators)

Necroticplague

2017-08-21, 09:33 AM

Yup. In 3.5 too. The best skill-users are guys who get lots of skills and external boosts, like 3.5 Bards rocking Bardic Knack and Inspiration, or Investigators. (Just... all of Investigators)

I don't know much about Investigators, but Alchemist always comes to mind in this regard. A rogue has DEX (base, race, level, gear)+Skill ranks for sneaking. An Alchemist has the same, but can then chug a Mutagen to increase his DEX more and fly, climb, burrow, swim, see in the dark, blindsense, and a few more miscellaneous abilities.

Psyren

2017-08-21, 10:45 AM

Investigators are basically Alchemists with more skills and no bombs. Definitely a fun rogue replacement, especially in less combat-heavy games where DPR is a lower concern (though they can certainly dish it out when they need to as well.)

Calthropstu

2017-08-21, 11:03 AM

A rogue is worse than unchained rogue. But "useless" and "worst class"? Far from it.
Rogue has decent hp (d8), decent ability selection (very few classes get access to improved evasion) making them extremely survivable against many tactics. They have one of the most impressive class skill lists in the game, including ALL the social skills, and the #1 skill rank in the game. They also have access to a very wide array of archetypes, allowing them to specialize in numerous abilities.
So they are far from useless.

Rynjin

2017-08-21, 01:53 PM

I don't need to build a rogue to prove they are useful at high level. Their stealth is mundane. Which means that if someone is relying on invisibility to hide from someone, things like detect magic, see invisibility, trueseeing, and so on work against them. Stealth is just stealth, if you don't have perception, you're not going to beat it. Especially if some format of hide in plain sight is involved.

That said, Rangers may be good at stealth too, but they don't have sneak attacking, and other classes may get a handful of sneak attack dice, but from my recollection, only the ninja rivals the rogue in how many sneak attack dice they get. So this doesn't come down to a comparison of rogue vs everything else, it comes down to rogue vs ninja. And isn't Ninja supposed to replace Rogue for oriental games anyway? So you're generally not going to be seeing ninja vs rogue fights going on, or have an option between them anyway.

I don't have time to do an in depth comparison right now, but things to look at are: chassis (hit die, bab, saves, skill points), class features, what can counter the strengths of the class? what are weaknesses that can be exploited of the class?

Mundane stealth is good, magical stealth is good, but both is even better. Rogues don't get both (but Investigators and Bards and Inquisitors all do!).

Sneak Attack is just damage. Unreliable damage. Unreliable damage some enemy types are immune to.

For the former you can use other methods, like dispels or antimagic. The latter statement is false (you're thinking of 3.5.)

For the former, yes (though it's a bit of a waste of a spell slot IMO, you're usually better just eating the damage). The latter, no, though I think it's often overlooked. From the Symbol of Fear entry in the CRB (and repeated for all BUT Symbol of Death: "Note: Magic traps such as symbol of fear are hard to detect and disable. A rogue (only) can use the Perception skill to find a symbol of fear and Disable Device to thwart it. The DC in each case is 25 + spell level, or 31 for symbol of fear." (This is edited sightly in a later printing to say "A character with Trapfinding (only)" instead of Rogue specifically).

A rogue is worse than unchained rogue. But "useless" and "worst class"? Far from it.
Rogue has decent hp (d8), decent ability selection (very few classes get access to improved evasion) making them extremely survivable against many tactics. They have one of the most impressive class skill lists in the game, including ALL the social skills, and the #1 skill rank in the game. They also have access to a very wide array of archetypes, allowing them to specialize in numerous abilities.
So they are far from useless.

Improved Evasion is mostly pointless. Evasion is neat but Improved is generally overkill. It doesn't make Rogues "extremely survivable" since it just makes them better at the least important save in the game. Class skill lists are mostly irrelevant and their skills/level are only the best on paper. 6+Int and 4+Int is better when you're an Int based class (like Investigator).

You should take a better look at Rogue archetypes before saying that BTW. Most make veeeeery minor changes since they only replace Trapfinding and Trap Sense, so most aren't really better than the base Rogue at anything important. Thug, Scout, Carnivalist, and the one that gives them spellcasting in place of Sneak Attack are the only real standouts.

Kurald Galain

2017-08-21, 02:08 PM

Sneak Attack is just damage. Unreliable damage. Unreliable damage some enemy types are immune to.
This is Pathfinder, not 3E. Sneak Attack is very much reliable.

Rynjin

2017-08-21, 02:23 PM

This is Pathfinder, not 3E. Sneak Attack is very much reliable.

Sneak Attack requires you to double up on one enemy. In a game where everybody SHOULD be able to hold their own in a 1v1 fight with anything that's not a boss enemy, it means you're pretty much dead weight. The Fighter has that frost giant, go fight one of the other three...oh wait, you can't, because you need SA to do anything.

It's a damage source that's only particularly useful in certain fights, and there it's not an overwhelming advantage like Favored Enemy or Smite.

Perhaps it's more accurate to say it's not really USEFUL. You have it pretty much whenever you want it (unless you're the only melee frontliner in which case you have bigger issues) but it requires the party to bend around you to accommodate getting it, it's less helpful than smaller but less terrain constrained damage boosters like Studied Combat, and it's not really that big a deal damage-wise anyway.

CharonsHelper

2017-08-21, 02:55 PM

Sneak Attack requires you to double up on one enemy. In a game where everybody SHOULD be able to hold their own in a 1v1 fight with anything that's not a boss enemy, it means you're pretty much dead weight.

Yeah... if you don't know how to build your character.

By mid levels it is pretty easy to get SA on your own every round through various methods, perhaps most easily through a Feint build. Two Weapon Feint works well, as does Moonlight Stalker Feint (though it requires a bunch of feats to pull off - and then either Blur or smoke pellets).

Or have your wizard buddy use Summon Monster (already one of the game's best spells) summon up a flank buddy for you.

Or...

etc.

Sagetim

2017-08-21, 03:08 PM

But also this is Pathfinder. Stealth as a class skill isn't just a Trait away, it's only a +3 bonus if you get it. The Rogue doesn't have any particular claim on being "good at Stealth" beyond a good Dex score.

Oh, yeah, I didn't have time earlier to write a fully fleshed out post or analysis, I just wanted to make the point that rogues are not useless at high level (which other people had already made earlier in the thread, not that I had time to read any of the posts).

I agree that the rogue is likely to be outclassed by other classes, that's generally how power creep works in dnd. Like in 3.5 where base classes after the core rule book started being better than the core classes (especially in the case of fighter, rogue, monk, paladin, ranger and barbarian vs Tome of Battle). In Pathfinder much the same was bound to happen eventually as the makers of the game realized how disparate the power gap still was between high tier classes and lower tier classes.

I wasn't aware the vivisectionist alchemist gets full sneak attack progression, that seems pretty handy. Especially if it's a trade out for the relatively less useful bombs (doing baseline fire damage and requiring investment of class features or feats that could be used to do other things for a limit per day ability just isn't as good as a raw damage boost that you can make available to yourself with regularity by using tactics and team work to me.)

Also, Blind sense gets around invisibility too, so it's not like that's going to help you in the stealth game against those targets. What Will help is intangibility, something the rogue can do if path of war is on the table (the Hidden Blade archetype is actually quite nice for a variety of shenanigans that can help you blender people with your sneak attack). But that moves away from the core.

If we move away from the core books as you've defined them, you might see that the rogue isn't nearly as bad off as it appears to be, in part because it Does get support. Like the Fighter, it has an archetype particular to it in Path of War, and as far as I am aware, they get new rogue tricks every so often sprinkled about in books here and there, much as fighters got fighter only feats sprinkled to them in 3.5.

Ultimately, casters are heavily favored in Pathfinder, and I'm not complaining about that, but if someone is theory crafting they're probably going to point to casters being able to do everything better than everyone else, because in theory they can. In practice, this doesn't always shake out. Especially if you use your wider skill spread to sneak up on the caster in question and open combat with a surprise round to the throat, then follow it up by winning initiative with another sneak attack to their giblets. Because people seem to forget that wizards can die to a solid knifing. This is still true at high level, you'll just probably need to be more careful with your timing. After all, with only 2+int mod skill points, they may well not be invested in perception And sense motive And stealth, and all the things you can do because you have a baseline of 8 skill points, not 2.

As a complete tangent, wizard's aren't the only ones who can think outside the box. With a little ground work, you can use bluff or diplomacy with a mob of unruly children to convince them that the wizard you're trying to kill has candy on them and will give it out if you mob them hard enough. With the wizard thus distracted, proceed to sneak attack them from a hidden position nearby. Do they fireball the kids? Can they even detect your position? Who knows how it will shake out, but my point is that wizards aren't the only ones who can get creative in a dnd game, and rogues have skill points to spare on shenanigans with skills.

Rynjin

2017-08-21, 03:37 PM

Yeah... if you don't know how to build your character.

By mid levels it is pretty easy to get SA on your own every round through various methods, perhaps most easily through a Feint build. Two Weapon Feint works well, as does Moonlight Stalker Feint (though it requires a bunch of feats to pull off - and then either Blur or smoke pellets).

Ooh! I was hoping somebody would mention Feint. I had a post already typed up and everything!

"But what about Feint?" you might ask.

What about it? You need two Feats (Combat Expertise and Improved Feint) just to make it usable at low levels. You need another Feat and 8th level (Greater Feint) to make it useful to anyone but yourself. You need two more Feats (Two-Weapon Fighting and Two-Weapon Feint) and to give up the whole benefit of the former just to make multiple attacks with it and two MORE (Improved TWF and TWFeint) just to make USE of being able to make multiple attacks with it (Two-Weapon Feint is utterly useless since Feint only works until your next attack by default).

Feint is terrible unless you spend every Feat you get between 1st and 11th (1st and 13th if non-Human) on making it suck marginally less. And you still need to pump Cha to make it useful unless you play a better class (and eat yet another Feat) since the DCs for anything non-humanoid (i.e. 75% of everything you fight) scale interestingly.

I did forget about Moonlight Stalker Feint though:

Moonlight Stalker Feint, keep in mind, takes YET THREE MORE Feats so you can, as a Swift action, get Sneak Attack on ONE of your attacks until you finally, finally qualify for Greater Feint at 8th level. And requires the party to buff you, essentially.

Just buff the Inqusitor or Investigator instead, save yourself some time. Or better yet, prepare other spells because those classes can buff themselves.

Or have your wizard buddy use Summon Monster (already one of the game's best spells) summon up a flank buddy for you.

Or...

etc.

See: Requires the party to bend around you for marginal reward.

Ultimately, casters are heavily favored in Pathfinder, and I'm not complaining about that, but if someone is theory crafting they're probably going to point to casters being able to do everything better than everyone else, because in theory they can. In practice, this doesn't always shake out. Especially if you use your wider skill spread to sneak up on the caster in question and open combat with a surprise round to the throat, then follow it up by winning initiative with another sneak attack to their giblets. Because people seem to forget that wizards can die to a solid knifing. This is still true at high level, you'll just probably need to be more careful with your timing. After all, with only 2+int mod skill points, they may well not be invested in perception And sense motive And stealth, and all the things you can do because you have a baseline of 8 skill points, not 2.

Did you forget that Wizards are Int based? 24 Int+2 skills is equivalent to your Rogue that likely has 12 Int+8.

Wizards also have better access to things that boost Initiative (there's a lot of Divination Wizards for a reason), and unless supremely underleveled aren't going to die to two Sneak Attacks anyway.

I agree that the rogue is likely to be outclassed by other classes, that's generally how power creep works in dnd. Like in 3.5 where base classes after the core rule book started being better than the core classes (especially in the case of fighter, rogue, monk, paladin, ranger and barbarian vs Tome of Battle). In Pathfinder much the same was bound to happen eventually as the makers of the game realized how disparate the power gap still was between high tier classes and lower tier classes.

You can't really shout "Power Creep!" about something that's been apparent since Core. Bards have ALWAYS been better Rogues than Rogues.

As a complete tangent, wizard's aren't the only ones who can think outside the box. With a little ground work, you can use bluff or diplomacy with a mob of unruly children to convince them that the wizard you're trying to kill has candy on them and will give it out if you mob them hard enough. With the wizard thus distracted, proceed to sneak attack them from a hidden position nearby. Do they fireball the kids? Can they even detect your position? Who knows how it will shake out, but my point is that wizards aren't the only ones who can get creative in a dnd game, and rogues have skill points to spare on shenanigans with skills.

What the **** is this inane babbling?

Kurald Galain

2017-08-21, 03:54 PM

Feint is terrible unless you spend every Feat you get between 1st and 11th (1st and 13th if non-Human) on making it suck marginally less.

Or, you know, take one level of Maneuver Master Monk... :smallbiggrin:

ExLibrisMortis

2017-08-21, 04:09 PM

Like in 3.5 where base classes after the core rule book started being better than the core classes (especially in the case of fighter, rogue, monk, paladin, ranger and barbarian vs Tome of Battle).
Hexblade, knight, ninja, samurai (both of them), healer, truenamer, marshal, swashbuckler and soulknife would like a word with you... I mean, your argument works equally well in reverse: D&D has reverse power creep, because pretty much all classes released after the PHB are weaker than core classes, especially in the case of druids, clerics, wizards, and sorcerers versus Tome of Magic.

Sagetim

2017-08-21, 04:48 PM

See: Requires the party to bend around you for marginal reward.

Did you forget that Wizards are Int based? 24 Int+2 skills is equivalent to your Rogue that likely has 12 Int+8.

Wizards also have better access to things that boost Initiative (there's a lot of Divination Wizards for a reason), and unless supremely underleveled aren't going to die to two Sneak Attacks anyway.

You can't really shout "Power Creep!" about something that's been apparent since Core. Bards have ALWAYS been better Rogues than Rogues.

What the **** is this inane babbling?

1) The party isn't bending around you if you move to flank things in tandem with them. That's, you now, part of team work.

2) I am aware wizards are int based, but they also have fewer native class skills than the rogue because their base skill points are lower. And you seem to be operating on the assumption that characters will always have maximum stat in the main stat of their class. It's not actually unreasonable for someone to start with only a 16 in their highest stat instead of a 20 after racial adjustments. And while you can get more skills as class skills from traits, the rogue doesn't have to try as hard, because their list of class skills is already bigger. So, you know, less investment is required for a rogue to do skill based shenanigans, especially at lower level, where the wizard isn't going to have nearly as high an int as later on.

3) I mean, you're probably not getting just two in the example given, if you're starting combat and getting the sneak attacks for that round, you can get whatever your full round of attacks worth of sneak attacks is, potentially blending the wizard into a fine mist. While a wizard is ideally going to get a good constitution, they only have a d6 hit die, vs the sneak attack. It's certainly not impossible for a rogue to gank a wizard before they can do anything about it.

4) Did I come across as if I meant power creep as a bad thing? I had meant only to use it as a descriptive term rather than a derogatory one. After Psionics and a few of the completes, the authors at wizards seemed to realize 'oh, man, martials really suck something awful, let's fix that somehow'. And we wound up with things like the Duskblade from player's handbook 2, the initiators in book of nine swords, and so on. I didn't mean to imply that there was a steady increase in power since core came out, the power line was probably doing something more of a wiggley wobble for a while for not-casters, while casters seemed like they got a fairly regular upward trend with regular sprinklings of spells and such.
So, in response to Exlibrismortis- there's more than one power trend going on. I did not do a very good job of representing it, and that's not my goal in these posts.

5) It's Inane Babbling, also known as a Tangent. That's why I called it out as a tangent at the start of that paragraph. You can skip it if you like, that's rather the point of calling out a tangent as a tangent.

Rynjin

2017-08-21, 04:57 PM

Or, you know, take one level of Maneuver Master Monk... :smallbiggrin:

One minor issue with that: Feint isn't actually a Combat Maneuver.

1) The party isn't bending around you if you move to flank things in tandem with them. That's, you now, part of team work.

It is when you're the only one that NEEDS that kind of extra help just to have a baseline combat usefulness.

2) I am aware wizards are int based, but they also have fewer native class skills than the rogue because their base skill points are lower. And you seem to be operating on the assumption that characters will always have maximum stat in the main stat of their class. It's not actually unreasonable for someone to start with only a 16 in their highest stat instead of a 20 after racial adjustments. And while you can get more skills as class skills from traits, the rogue doesn't have to try as hard, because their list of class skills is already bigger. So, you know, less investment is required for a rogue to do skill based shenanigans, especially at lower level, where the wizard isn't going to have nearly as high an int as later on.

I always assume a full caster starts with an 18 after racial in these discussions. They have no other pressing stat requirements, so on a standard 20 PB a Wizard can have a solid 14 Dex and Con and a 16 Int pre-racial without even dumping a stat. There is zero reason to assume otherwise.

3) I mean, you're probably not getting just two in the example given, if you're starting combat and getting the sneak attacks for that round, you can get whatever your full round of attacks worth of sneak attacks is, potentially blending the wizard into a fine mist. While a wizard is ideally going to get a good constitution, they only have a d6 hit die, vs the sneak attack. It's certainly not impossible for a rogue to gank a wizard before they can do anything about it.

You're assuming ideal conditions for the Rogue and the complete opposite for the Wizard. Ask yourself how likely that is.

The d6 HD really isn't as big a deal as you make it out to be. And I mean that in sort of the opposite sense. Assuming your same ideal conditions (Surprise round + full round before opponent acts, all attacks hit and deal average damage) a character with d8 or possibly even d10 HD would be mulched too, given roughly even stats.

Those conditions just don't really come up enough to mention as a selling point. You may as well just say the Barbarian RAGELANCEPOUNCES the Wizard and have done. At least that one has way fewer hoops to jump through to work.

Grod_The_Giant

2017-08-21, 05:00 PM

Hexblade, knight, ninja, samurai (both of them), healer, truenamer, marshal, swashbuckler and soulknife would like a word with you... I mean, your argument works equally well in reverse: D&D has reverse power creep, because pretty much all classes released after the PHB are weaker than core classes, especially in the case of druids, clerics, wizards, and sorcerers versus Tome of Magic.
Most of those were early. 2003 and 2004 were bad years for non-full-caster power the PHB, MH, CWar, CDiv, and CArc were all, to a greater or lesser degree, stinkers for mundanes. The Warlock is the only useful thing that's not a full caster, and they were pretty weak before they got their Hellfire and their Glaives.

2005 was better. The Scout and Spellthief in CAdv were passable, but we also got Heroes of Horror (two very strong classes) and Incarnum (weirdly early in the progression; still, one very strong/power-creepy class, one middling, and one weak).

2006 saw the Truenamer, Divine Mind, Dragon Shaman and Knight on the weak end; we also got the Ardent, Beguiler, and ToB on the high end, with the Binder, Dragonfire Adept, and Swordsage somewhere in the middle.

2007 just had Dungeonscape, oddly late. The Factotum is inexcusably messy for this late in the edition, and is at a really weird balance-point.

Sagetim

2017-08-21, 05:35 PM

*snip*
I always assume a full caster starts with an 18 after racial in these discussions. They have no other pressing stat requirements, so on a standard 20 PB a Wizard can have a solid 14 Dex and Con and a 16 Int pre-racial without even dumping a stat. There is zero reason to assume otherwise.

You're assuming ideal conditions for the Rogue and the complete opposite for the Wizard. Ask yourself how likely that is.

The d6 HD really isn't as big a deal as you make it out to be. And I mean that in sort of the opposite sense. Assuming your same ideal conditions (Surprise round + full round before opponent acts, all attacks hit and deal average damage) a character with d8 or possibly even d10 HD would be mulched too, given roughly even stats.

Those conditions just don't really come up enough to mention as a selling point. You may as well just say the Barbarian RAGELANCEPOUNCES the Wizard and have done. At least that one has way fewer hoops to jump through to work.

1) I mean, if you've only ever been in pathfinder games with 20 point buy, sure, I suppose that's fair. I haven't. I've been in 15 point buy games. Which are rather more often for me when it comes to online games of pathfinder. So rather than assuming ideal conditions, I try to assume that classes aren't going to be sporting shiny 18's or 20's with regards to general discussion, comparison, and analysis...unless we are specifically comparing everything at the top end.

2) Yes, I am. Because it seems that a lot of the time in theory crafting people assume ideal conditions for the casters is the norm. Then they proceed to bang on and on about how this is awesome, or overpowered, or the best, or needs to be nerfed, or what have you.

3) So you're just kind of proving the point I was getting at, that sneak attack is not utterly ignorable in ideal conditions for it's use, just as grease, sleep, color spray, summoning, animating undead, and so on are not bad options in the best conditions for their use. But we can't really dictate the conditions for their use, that comes down to the game at hand, the players actions, the gm's reactions, and how the rules are run. This can vary wildly from game to game, but in the end players tend to pick at least one thing that they're going to be good at, then try to set up conditions to make sure they can make the best use of the thing they are good at to solve the problem.

I'm not trying to sell the rogue so much as point out that they aren't useless and don't suck. They might be terribly underpowered in comparison to other classes, but there's a difference between not being as powerful as others, and being objectively weak. If someone has 18 strength, they are strong. They are probably pretty damn swole. But if their entire party is composed of people with 30+ strength, they aren't going to Seem as powerful because of the standard that the others are setting and assume the world operates by. That doesn't mean they are actually weak, but rather that they seem weak given the others they are around and compared to. That's my point. Rogues may not be the best ever (even at the things they are supposed to be good/the best at) but they can still get things done.

Rynjin

2017-08-21, 05:49 PM

1) I mean, if you've only ever been in pathfinder games with 20 point buy, sure, I suppose that's fair. I haven't. I've been in 15 point buy games. Which are rather more often for me when it comes to online games of pathfinder. So rather than assuming ideal conditions, I try to assume that classes aren't going to be sporting shiny 18's or 20's with regards to general discussion, comparison, and analysis...unless we are specifically comparing everything at the top end.

Even in 15 PB the Wizard still gets his 16, and good race optimization (or a heavy Cha dump and slight Str dump) will get him the 14/14 Con/Dex as well. The Cha dump won't even really hurt him since there's two fun traits that give you Diplomacy and Intimidate based off Int if you really want to still be the face.

20 PB is the average for games I've played and for PFS, so it's a good neutral discussion base.

By the by, want to apologize for my "Inane babbling" comment earlier. Head's been splitting open all day and that was unnecessarily hostile as a result.

2) Yes, I am. Because it seems that a lot of the time in theory crafting people assume ideal conditions for the casters is the norm. Then they proceed to bang on and on about how this is awesome, or overpowered, or the best, or needs to be nerfed, or what have you.

I like to assume a level playing field when discussing class comparisons. If the Wizard gets an hour to prepare, so does the Rogue.

The main issue is a Wizard can do a lot more with an hour to prepare himself than a Rogue can.

3) So you're just kind of proving the point I was getting at, that sneak attack is not utterly ignorable in ideal conditions for it's use, just as grease, sleep, color spray, summoning, animating undead, and so on are not bad options in the best conditions for their use. But we can't really dictate the conditions for their use, that comes down to the game at hand, the players actions, the gm's reactions, and how the rules are run. This can vary wildly from game to game, but in the end players tend to pick at least one thing that they're going to be good at, then try to set up conditions to make sure they can make the best use of the thing they are good at to solve the problem.

Thing is, you have to work way harder to make Sneak Attack viable as a main damage option than other choices, and it's not really comparable to a spell. A Wizard who builds himself as an Enchantment specialist is going to be a bit miffed in an undead heavy campaign, but that Wizard can still prepare spells from other schools and be reasonably effective because the Wizard has OPTIONS, and those options are modular and not completely "locked in".

A Rogue who has used all his Feats to make Sneak Attack easier to get absolutely IS "locked in". Feats can't be changed on the fly like spells can.

Situational options are only bad if they can't be swapped out.

I'm not trying to sell the rogue so much as point out that they aren't useless and don't suck. They might be terribly underpowered in comparison to other classes, but there's a difference between not being as powerful as others, and being objectively weak. If someone has 18 strength, they are strong. They are probably pretty damn swole. But if their entire party is composed of people with 30+ strength, they aren't going to Seem as powerful because of the standard that the others are setting and assume the world operates by. That doesn't mean they are actually weak, but rather that they seem weak given the others they are around and compared to. That's my point. Rogues may not be the best ever (even at the things they are supposed to be good/the best at) but they can still get things done.

They do suck though for all the reasons you mention. They aren't particularly good at anything. In a game where many classes can do what you do, but better, you suck. There is no reason for a class that is inferior at everything it's "good" at to classes that do the same thing, but better, plus more to exist. You're better off just ignoring its existence and moving on.

Kitsuneymg

2017-08-21, 07:59 PM

Or, you know, take one level of Maneuver Master Monk... :smallbiggrin:

What does that do for you?

Note: Though the feint action is located here, near the rules for combat maneuvers, and while it seems like it might BE a combat maneuver, feinting is NOT a combat maneuver. The Paizo PRD is organized with the feint rules located in the same placement.

Psyren

2017-08-21, 08:53 PM

For the former, yes (though it's a bit of a waste of a spell slot IMO, you're usually better just eating the damage). The latter, no, though I think it's often overlooked. From the Symbol of Fear entry in the CRB (and repeated for all BUT Symbol of Death: "Note: Magic traps such as symbol of fear are hard to detect and disable. A rogue (only) can use the Perception skill to find a symbol of fear and Disable Device to thwart it. The DC in each case is 25 + spell level, or 31 for symbol of fear." (This is edited sightly in a later printing to say "A character with Trapfinding (only)" instead of Rogue specifically).

1) The general rule does not require trapfinding to perceive magic traps, so at best this reading only applies to those glyph spells that specifically contain this line (like Symbol of Fear). It still does not apply to all magic traps, which can be perceived normally by non-trapfinders whose check is high enough.

2) For characters without trapfinding at all - again, all they need is Detect Magic to locate those spells, and there are several ways to get that. Lantern of Auras for instance is cheap to craft and lets you use it at-will. Or you can quaff a potion or two.

Rynjin

2017-08-21, 09:19 PM

1) The general rule does not require trapfinding to perceive magic traps, so at best this reading only applies to those glyph spells that specifically contain this line (like Symbol of Fear). It still does not apply to all magic traps, which can be perceived normally by non-trapfinders whose check is high enough.

2) For characters without trapfinding at all - again, all they need is Detect Magic to locate those spells, and there are several ways to get that. Lantern of Auras for instance is cheap to craft and lets you use it at-will. Or you can quaff a potion or two.

1.) I'm aware. That's why I specifically said "symbols and glyphs" though in hindsight I'm not 100% on the glyphs bit.

2.) It's doable, but quite slow...and doesn't actually help against symbols, which trigger up to a range of 60 feet. Your best case scenario is "The Wizard is leading the party and is the only one affected".

You're better off casting Aram Zey's Focus instead.

Psyren

2017-08-21, 09:49 PM

Glyph of Warding, Explosive Runes and the like do not contain that line. It seems to be for symbols only, and not all of them even then.

The 60ft actually refers to the maximum distance at which the symbol can be triggered. In practice, it is likely to be much closer (e.g. the victim needs to read it, touch it, pass through a portal bearing it etc, and furthermore it must be prominent, uncovered and visible or else lose its powers) and so I wouldn't write off the detection method out of hand.

Sagetim

2017-08-21, 11:45 PM

Even in 15 PB the Wizard still gets his 16, and good race optimization (or a heavy Cha dump and slight Str dump) will get him the 14/14 Con/Dex as well. The Cha dump won't even really hurt him since there's two fun traits that give you Diplomacy and Intimidate based off Int if you really want to still be the face.

20 PB is the average for games I've played and for PFS, so it's a good neutral discussion base.

By the by, want to apologize for my "Inane babbling" comment earlier. Head's been splitting open all day and that was unnecessarily hostile as a result.

I like to assume a level playing field when discussing class comparisons. If the Wizard gets an hour to prepare, so does the Rogue.

The main issue is a Wizard can do a lot more with an hour to prepare himself than a Rogue can.

Thing is, you have to work way harder to make Sneak Attack viable as a main damage option than other choices, and it's not really comparable to a spell. A Wizard who builds himself as an Enchantment specialist is going to be a bit miffed in an undead heavy campaign, but that Wizard can still prepare spells from other schools and be reasonably effective because the Wizard has OPTIONS, and those options are modular and not completely "locked in".

A Rogue who has used all his Feats to make Sneak Attack easier to get absolutely IS "locked in". Feats can't be changed on the fly like spells can.

Situational options are only bad if they can't be swapped out.

They do suck though for all the reasons you mention. They aren't particularly good at anything. In a game where many classes can do what you do, but better, you suck. There is no reason for a class that is inferior at everything it's "good" at to classes that do the same thing, but better, plus more to exist. You're better off just ignoring its existence and moving on.

1) oh, well if it's the standard for PFS, then that makes sense to use as a standard for comparison in general.
2) I mean, I took it as a humorous statement, because it was Inane Babbling instead of a string of curse words, so I wasn't particularly offended or anything. And I know I can wander rather far off topic, so it fit into more of a 'this is not part of the thread' than 'this is an insult'. Thank you for the apology, though.
3) And that makes sense in theory crafting, but that's not guaranteed to be the case in actual situations for dnd. Usually there's some amount of casting that goes on before encounters even begin in the day (for example, mage armor, or other 'all day' buffs), and only one side might be aware of the other before the fight begins. I don't contest that wizards can potentially do more within an hour to prepare, but am just trying to point out that other people can prep too.

4) again, comparing rogue and wizard, which seems a bit odd to me. But to start with, sneak attack in pathfinder can hit undead and constructs with discernable anatomies. It's a nice upgrade from 3.5 where they were just a giant middle finger to the rogue. I concede that spell slots are more versatile than feats, I don't think we're trying to prove that rogue class abilities are better than wizard class abilities. They're...kind of not in a general sense. Rogues have a decent chassis that can be built on and utilized. It's not the best around, but you can make it work (though it will take you more effort to do so than other builds). Wizards beat Rogues when it comes to versatility in problem solving, but Rogues beat out wizards in terms of ease of skill based shenanigans (by having a longer list of class skills) and in repeatability of class based actions (they can sneak attack all day, every day, with no regard to how much rest they've gotten. Wizards have a limit on spells per day, even if they can drop cantrips all day).

Also, can't rogues get some spell tricks later on? Would that not give them access to the much vaunted invisibility, even if only in a limited fashion?

Rogues aren't the best thing ever, but they're not terrible. Terrible is commoner. I think we can agree the rogue, however hard it might be to make it work to the level of optimization you expect from classes, is still better than a commoner by a fair margin.

Kurald Galain

2017-08-22, 12:11 AM

What does that do for you?

Ok, then I agree that feinting sucks.

Very well, you use Dirty Trick instead. DT to blind offers worse penalties than feinting anyway. Maneuver master is a good pick for this.

HamaYumi

2017-08-22, 01:44 AM

Ok, then I agree that feinting sucks.

Very well, you use Dirty Trick instead. DT to blind offers worse penalties than feinting anyway. Maneuver master is a good pick for this.

OP asked for "core" books. Otherwise DT rogue builds are insane assuming sneak attack and whatnot isn't an issue. The +1d6 SA feat along with a potential +7 to dirty tricks because adding the dies rolled for SA to an attempted dirty trick goes a long way for lower bab and stat/feat investments compared to a brawler/fighter. Also there is a rogue talent to gives improved DT as a bonus feat as well as granting an entry to greater DT at level 6. Not to mention, the first round of blind cannot be removed through mundane means such as using a move/standard to remove the condition. Dirty Trick Master is a no brainer.

With all this going for the rogue, there are assumptions and "power creep" to consider.

Rynjin

2017-08-22, 01:50 AM

14) again, comparing rogue and wizard, which seems a bit odd to me. But to start with, sneak attack in pathfinder can hit undead and constructs with discernable anatomies. It's a nice upgrade from 3.5 where they were just a giant middle finger to the rogue. I concede that spell slots are more versatile than feats, I don't think we're trying to prove that rogue class abilities are better than wizard class abilities. They're...kind of not in a general sense. Rogues have a decent chassis that can be built on and utilized. It's not the best around, but you can make it work (though it will take you more effort to do so than other builds). Wizards beat Rogues when it comes to versatility in problem solving, but Rogues beat out wizards in terms of ease of skill based shenanigans (by having a longer list of class skills) and in repeatability of class based actions (they can sneak attack all day, every day, with no regard to how much rest they've gotten. Wizards have a limit on spells per day, even if they can drop cantrips all day).

Really not interested in rehashing the "At-will is overvalued in Pathfinder" argument ATM. See my posts on Paizo about why the Kineticist is such an unsatisfying, unfun mess to play if you want my opinions there.

Also, can't rogues get some spell tricks later on? Would that not give them access to the much vaunted invisibility, even if only in a limited fashion?

Only if they take the archetype that trades sneak attack for 6 level Wizard casting.

Rogues aren't the best thing ever, but they're not terrible. Terrible is commoner. I think we can agree the rogue, however hard it might be to make it work to the level of optimization you expect from classes, is still better than a commoner by a fair margin.

I mean, "is better than a class literally designed not to be played by players" is a pretty low bar.

The funny thing is, there's a good argument to be made that a Rogue is weaker than an Adept, which is also an NPC class.

Ok, then I agree that feinting sucks.

Very well, you use Dirty Trick instead. DT to blind offers worse penalties than feinting anyway. Maneuver master is a good pick for this.

Dirty Trick kind of has the opposite problem of Feint. Where Feint is piss easy to pull off, but useless when you do (since Bluff vs a static DC is an easy peasy check), Dirty Trick is potentially godlike...but it goes against CMB. Ad that make sit SIGNIFICANTLY more challenging to consistently pull off.

It's not really worth the dip for Dirty Trick, the AC hit you take in the early/midgame is too huge for the benefit (and damage hit if you use a Rapier). Dirty Trick takes way less Feats than Feint though, so it's at least a lighter load on the character for a pure Rogue.

Sayt

2017-08-22, 01:51 AM

Feinting is okay on Slayers, who can use a Ranger Combat Style from Ultimate Intrigue to pick up Improved Two Weapon Feint without the pre-requisites.

Rynjin

2017-08-22, 01:55 AM

Feinting is okay on Slayers, who can use a Ranger Combat Style from Ultimate Intrigue to pick up Improved Two Weapon Feint without the pre-requisites.

Slayer's Feint isn't too bad either (use Acrobatics instead of Bluff for Feint) if you want to dump Cha and put the DCs in "Can't fail on a 1 even with the -8 for fighting a dire frog or whatever".

Sagetim

2017-08-22, 02:18 AM

Really not interested in rehashing the "At-will is overvalued in Pathfinder" argument ATM. See my posts on Paizo about why the Kineticist is such an unsatisfying, unfun mess to play if you want my opinions there.

Only if they take the archetype that trades sneak attack for 6 level Wizard casting.

I mean, "is better than a class literally designed not to be played by players" is a pretty low bar.

The funny thing is, there's a good argument to be made that a Rogue is weaker than an Adept, which is also an NPC class.

1) Right. I didn't mean to imply that at will is some kind of balancing factor against effects you actually get from spell slots, but rather to point at it and say 'this is what the rogue does well'. Much like fighters do that well. While the built in at will option for most casters is cantrips, and those suck by comparison. However, when you start comparing limited use capabilities against at will capabilities, the limited use ones tend to pull far, far ahead in raw power. To make up for their limited uses. So I get that. I just wanted to point at that and say 'one of the things in rogue's favor is that they aren't limited per day'. It's a minor strength (well, it's endurance at least), but it tends to get blown out of the water in comparison to limited per day class abilities.

Also, I was misremembering Minor and Major Magic, the Rogue Tricks. I thought they got up to decent levels of spells, not 'cantrips' for one and '1st level spell' for the other. That's really depressing. Now, if you could bogart some 3.5 spells for your game, you could maybe get swift invisibility or something as a first level spell to grab invisibility as a swift action to facilitate face stabbing. But that would still be two talents for, at best some cantrips to clean things up and do some tricks, and 2/day semi-guaranteed face stabbing.

2) Yes, it is a low bar. And the Rogue manages to clear it. But before you bring the Adept in to rain on the Rogue's parade, I would like to mention that the Adept is arguably better than a Lot of core noncasting or half casting classes, so it's not like the rogue is alone here in being potentially outdone by an adept.

edit: did you mean the Nightmage? Because that's third party, so it would lie well outside the bounds of the discussion. If we were talking third party, I'd be talking shenanigans with the Hidden Blade archetype and how well even just a handful of maneuvers mesh with sneak attack dice. That said, if I overlooked a first party archetype for the rogue that does casting, then please call it out by name so I can look it over.

Rynjin

2017-08-22, 02:30 AM

I believe it's the Eldritch Rogue? Let me find it. Pretty sure it was in the Magic Tactics Toolbox along with the Child of Acavna and Amazen (the similar Fighter archetype).

Here it is. Eldritch Scoundrel. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/rogue/archetypes/paizo-rogue-archetypes/eldritch-scoundrel-rogue/)

From Arcane Anthology.

"Filed barcodes version" of the overly long named Fighter archetype for reference. (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/fighter/archetypes/paizo-fighter-archetypes/child-of-war-fighter-archetype/)

Wasum

2017-08-22, 06:12 AM

Things a level 20 rogue will not be able to do in a regular pathfinder game:

- do something that could not be done better by other classes
- have significant impact on the result of an encounter that somehow depends on him actually being a rogue
- having the slightest chance to be a threat for a level 20 wizard or even being able to get close to him or even killing the wizard if he was your best friend falling asleep next to you.
- justify your decicion to play a rogue by any other means than the urge to read "Rogue" on the character sheet.
- benefit from his 8+ skillpoints or having "the most" of them.
- getting spotlight without the need of other PCs to let you shine.

Footman

2017-08-22, 07:23 AM

Now i think things are going too Far. The Core Rogue is indeed comperativly weaker in combat than all the other PC Classes, the Unchained Rogue however is a great Class, who is not. Both of them can and will contribute to the Party, it is just the comperativly speaking the Core Rogue is weaker tahn the other PC classes in combat, which is what i meant. Outside of core there are plenty of ways to get yourself some Sneak Attack.

Let me give you an Example:
1. Be an Unchained Rogue
2. Take the Vexing Dodger Archetype.
3. Be a small Race (prefferebely a Goblin since you can get a + 14 Racial Bonus to Climb with Alternate Racial Features)
4. Take the Press to the Wall Feat.
5. Pump your Climb skill like Crazy, get yourself a Ring with a + 10 to Climb!
6. You are Unchained Meaning you got the Debilitating Injury Class Feature.
7. Take the Graceful Athlete Feat to add Dex to Climb instead of strength.

What does this Combination do? Vexing Dodger lets you climb on People with a Climb Check against their CMB, and press to the Wall treats any Hard Surface that is directly opposit to you as a Flank. Now where do we have a hard surface everywhere? The Ground, since you are standing on top of your opponent the Ground is your Flanking Partner! This means you always get your Sneak Attack alone. Woot! Unless your enemy is Flying aww. But hey if they do catch a flying Enemy, a dispelling Strike against the Fly Spell, a called shot against the wings, or an invisible Imp Familiar who does nothing but flank are your best bets.

Now lets get to the Tasty Tasty debuffing side of things. Lets say you are Fighting some Bigass Strong Bruiser Monster on the ground. With your absurd Climb check, you climb the thing, and sneak Attack it! You Sneak Attack suceeds yay! Alright What Debuff does he get?
Lets see: Debilitating Injury (assuming a 20th Lvl Rogue), choosing bewildered: -8 To all Attacks on the Rogue (-6 against everyone else), now lets add the Penality from the Vexing Dodger Limb Climber Ability. (The climbed Monster takes an Attack Penality, -1 for every sneak Attack Dice the Rogue posses.) The 20th Lvl Rogue has 10 Sneak Attack Dice.

So yeah, you are Climbing in this Monsters Face, stabbing it in the Eye, doing nice damage with Sneak Attacks, and it gets a -18 on every Attack it wants to make at you! (Only -6 against your allies though, but still, you are CLIMBING IN ITS FRIGGIN FACE!). Since you are small you can even climb Medium Creatures. This is not only Effective, but it's also a very Fun Rogue build. Sadly that won't work with only core since you need to be Unchained, and you need the Giant Hunters Handbook.

There are quite a few ways to make a Rogue into a strong Member of your Party even at High Lvls, but with this "just core", thats very very hard. All that beeing said, Spellcasters are still OP at High Lvls, especially Wizard Sorcerer and Arcanist, which have Spells that are outright cheating. All the other Spellcasters aren't as bad, while they hold an Advantage over the Martials, the Gap is not that wide. The Problem is that Wizards a certain Lvl, will only Astrally Projecton from their very private Demiplane having clones ready in Six other private Demiplanes, and an Army of Planar Bound Fiends, as well as an Army of Undead. (Of Course any DM with a least half a Brain won't allow such Munchkinnery, but it is till build into the dreaded Arcane Spell list)

Wasum

2017-08-22, 07:48 AM

Footman

2017-08-22, 09:35 AM

I was talking about the core rogue and apologies, of course this only applies to the iconic rogue builds - there are some more exotic builds which are way above what you can expect from an average rogue (like the one you mentioned, touch builds or THF-Mobility stuff with sap master) but those require high levels of system mastery and don't fulfill the expectations you might have regarding the rogue class. These are niche builds. And still they struggle badly even though they are way above what a classic rogue could achieve.

Oh sorry, so thats what you meant.
It is actually kind of Sad that the Classes that are doing Alright at low lvls, like the Fighter and the Rogue, need such a High Degree of System Mastery to make viable at higher Lvls, while the Overpowered Spells are easy to spot.

Also one of the Problem is that at High Lvl no one needs Skills anymore (besides Perception) since Spells have long taken the Role of Skill Check. Well the Rogue is still the undefeated Trap Master, if you send the high Lvl PCs into something like the Tomb of Horror, just with even more buffed up Traps with DCs into the 30ties to 40ties, they will all be happy to have a Rogue around.

Other than that,... Well the Rogue is an Iconic scout, and the only Class that can get Hide in Plain sight besides the Ranger. A properly optimized core Rogue, can make for a very Decent Scout and Trap Disabler,.... (There are ways around all Senses besides Lifesense. Yes there is even a Feat with which you can make Stealth checks against Blindsight and Blindsense.) Can other Classes do that nearly just as well? Yes there are a few, but that doesn't invalidate the Rogues Role. Actually his Skill checks may even be able to save the Party Gold Resources for equipment and Spell Slots/Wands. A Fighter and a Barbarian are both doing the same thing: Killing a lot of Enemies while taking a lot of Punishment, that doesn't mean they invalidate ech other. They do the same thing, but go about it in different ways.

So as a Core Rogue you should Capitalize on your Niches, which are Scouting and Traps, and hope your DM will let you shine with those niches. Other than that you can compensate for a lot of Roles lacking in your Party. If you have no Social Guy, its rather easy to throw some Social abilities on the Rogue, even with a moderate CHA Score.
EDIT:
Remember you are 20th Lvl Adventurers but you still have Weaknesses. If your Wizard pisses of a King, the Wizard won't care, but if he pisses of a Celestial Lord things could go,... ugly. Unless there is a Charismatic Rogue around to Diplomacy his as Out! (Of course a Bard does that better, but if you don't have a Bard, or another CHA based Buddy around? Though Luck)

Wasum

2017-08-22, 09:56 AM

Florian

2017-08-22, 10:02 AM

OIt is actually kind of Sad that the Classes that are doing Alright at low lvls, like the Fighter and the Rogue, need such a High Degree of System Mastery to make viable at higher Lvls

They don´t need that. This is still a team-based game and the major metric is resource expenditure. What we mostly talk about here, things like 1 on 1 combat against equal CR enemies, is already performing way above what the system itself provides as "challenging" in stock monsters, traps or encounters.

I actually had to laugh when a bit upthread, someone asked the question what the rogue does while the fighter holds of the BBEG.... ouch.

ExLibrisMortis

2017-08-22, 10:13 AM

They don´t need that. This is still a team-based game and the major metric is resource expenditure. What we mostly talk about here, things like 1 on 1 combat against equal CR enemies, is already performing way above what the system itself provides as "challenging" in stock monsters, traps or encounters.
One-on-one combat versus an equal-CR opponent is a boss fight. Not a boss fight for the party, a boss fight for the one person. It's a test of what a class should, at its limit, be able to deal with, according to the core expectations.

Florian

2017-08-22, 10:40 AM

One-on-one combat versus an equal-CR opponent is a boss fight. Not a boss fight for the party, a boss fight for the one person. It's a test of what a class should, at its limit, be able to deal with, according to the core expectations.

BS. The core expectation is that the minimum size of a party is 3 characters. The APL calculation can´t scale lower than that.

Footman

2017-08-22, 11:13 AM

Still a commoner would be same as good covering the face role - it's just nothing about the rouge - some other classes just might need to spend a trait.

Same goes for traps as already mentioned. Personally I don't like games with traps coming up frequently anyway because it's just not that plausible to find traps in every dungeon. Often traps are used to make rogues shine and this kinda isn't the best reason to implement traps at all. If they came up often enough to give the rogue spotlight every session I don't think it would feel naturally. I guess traps are more of a relict of times when D&D was a game where architects planned buildings on mm-paper and game designers made up the stupidest dungeons one could think of.

But that is kinda the Iconic Rogues role, taking that away won't leave him with much, and since he has Rogue Stuff for Traps, (Trap Spotter Rogue Talent) for example, the Rogue will always be the best at Traps. He has custom tailored Rogue Talents and gets a Bonus on top of it, and he is Dex based. Granted other Classes can get near that (especially if they are Rogue Hybrids or have access to Rogue Talents), and normally that is enough, but the Rogue is still the Master here! I think Traps fit very nicely into the Game. If you go into the Tomb of Paranoid OP Wizard xyz he will for sure build in a lot of Traps Magical and otherwise since High Lvl Wizards are extremly Paranoid most of the Time. Of course you won't spend every Session in a Dungeon, but still it is as usefull as the GM makes it. If there is only social Stuff and near Zero combat, the Fighters and the Barbarian Players are both gonna die of Boredom, while the Bard will shine. So it really depends what the Focus is in your Game.

Also since we are searching for a Niche the Rogue can do. He is the best Thief in the Game. Period. Don't believe me? Take the Weapon Snatcher Advanced Rogue Talent and there ya go. Stealing Stuff can actually be rather usefull. Can other Classes do this too? Sure, but not as good as the Rogue.

legomaster00156

2017-08-22, 11:17 AM

I'm honestly not sure how good stealing a weapon is, when a disarm build can come on at level 1. :smallconfused:

Footman

2017-08-22, 11:23 AM

I'm honestly not sure how good stealing a weapon is, when a disarm build can come on at level 1. :smallconfused:
Because you CMD gets ridiculous at High Lvls, and CMB won't keep up unless you are a Fighter who invests most of his build into that, and even then you have Problems! With the Rogue Talent you can use a Skill which can be scales much better. So you can actually even Disarm a Rune Giants Weapon.

Grod_The_Giant

2017-08-22, 01:28 PM

I'm honestly not sure how good stealing a weapon is, when a disarm build can come on at level 1. :smallconfused:
Depends on the ratio of humanoids to monsters in your campaign. The more things use weapons, and the smaller those things are, the more effective disarming will be. But if you're mostly fighting dragons and owlbears and zombies and the like, all those disarm feats are going to feel mighty useless.

Other combat maneuvers can have similar problems, as monsters are often bigger and stronger than you, and sometimes have way too many hit dice (and, thus, BAB) for their CR, but disarm is unique in that it simply doesn't apply to a very large chunk of the monster manual.

Psyren

2017-08-22, 01:33 PM

CharonsHelper

2017-08-22, 01:38 PM

Sunder falls into this category too - but it's a bit more useful in PF because (a) you can sunder a variety of enemy items, including armor, jewelry and wondrous items, without destroying those items outright, and (b) it's possible to build martial characters that can sunder magic itself, keeping your sunder investments valuable even at higher levels.

I've never done it - but I've kind of wanted to build a Sunder based character in PFS where you aren't destroying the loot because the wealth gained per module is regulated and separate from the gear you grab.

unseenmage

2017-08-22, 01:47 PM

..., and sometimes have way too many hit dice (and, thus, BAB) for their CR, ...

How many IS 'way too many'? Because from what I recall, in comparing Constructs at least, there's only ever a 2-3 difference between CR and HD.

Mind you this was when I was looking to either play a monstrous character or build monsters for my characters to utilize so my bias could definitely be coloring my recollection.

Eldonauran

2017-08-22, 02:00 PM

One-on-one combat versus an equal-CR opponent is a boss fight. Not a boss fight for the party, a boss fight for the one person. It's a test of what a class should, at its limit, be able to deal with, according to the core expectations.
Seems to me that NOT ganging up on individual creatures in a fight to take them down quickly, is not an ideal decision. I don't mean the WHOLE party has to focus on one creature, but flanking is a useful tool for anyone in the party.

In any game I play (and I realize there is table variation and game play styles), we always have a flanking assistant for a martial character, whether that is another martial oriented character, a companion of some sort, or a summoned creature. Doesn't matter if it is a rogue, bard, fighter, druid, whatever. The difference of only a few BAB at lower/mid levels is offset by the flanking bonus.

Grod_The_Giant

2017-08-22, 02:09 PM

How many IS 'way too many'? Because from what I recall, in comparing Constructs at least, there's only ever a 2-3 difference between CR and HD.

Mind you this was when I was looking to either play a monstrous character or build monsters for my characters to utilize so my bias could definitely be coloring my recollection.
Might be a 3.5 thing, but from what I remember, it's mostly a problem with big dull bruisers like zombies and giants. Or with things that have advanced HD; things like undead and elementals have a lousy ratio of HD:CR. (Zombies usually have three times as many HD, and the stock elementals have a twofold ratio)

Psyren

2017-08-22, 02:10 PM

I've never done it - but I've kind of wanted to build a Sunder based character in PFS where you aren't destroying the loot because the wealth gained per module is regulated and separate from the gear you grab.

I mean, even if the stuff you're sundering IS part of the loot, both Mending and Make Whole can repair magic items in PF. In addition, you don't have to destroy items all the way - simply applying the "broken" condition can reduce an item's functionality enough (particularly for weapons and armor) to help your team in some cases.

Rynjin

2017-08-22, 02:11 PM

Flanking is an excellent tactic if you outnumber your opponents. If not, the bad guys can flank too and have more freedom to move around and do so to your squishies. Taking them on one on one in a scenario where your number equals theirs denies them that freedom of movement and flanking advantage.

I mean, even if the stuff you're sundering IS part of the loot, both Mending and Make Whole can repair magic items in PF. In addition, you don't have to destroy items all the way - simply applying the "broken" condition can reduce an item's functionality enough (particularly for weapons and armor) to help your team in some cases.

Needing double the caster level required to make the item to fix it with Make Whole is a big hindrance to that. You can make it Broken, but at higher levels it's hard to modulate that damage. I had a Sunderbarian once (primarily for Spell Sunder) and on the rare occasions I used it on enemy weapons and armor it was very possible to take the items from full to zero in a single attack.

Psyren

2017-08-22, 02:23 PM

Needing double the caster level required to make the item to fix it with Make Whole is a big hindrance to that. You can make it Broken, but at higher levels it's hard to modulate that damage. I had a Sunderbarian once (primarily for Spell Sunder) and on the rare occasions I used it on enemy weapons and armor it was very possible to take the items from full to zero in a single attack.

You may have missed this line while playing that character:

"If the damage you deal would reduce the object to less than 0 hit points, you can choose to destroy it. If you do not choose to destroy it, the object is left with only 1 hit point and the broken condition."

Therefore you can always choose to not go "full to zero" if you want, regardless of how much you optimize your sunder damage output.

In addition, even if you do "go to zero", items tend to have weak minimum caster level requirements, and CL boosts exist too. Have your cleric borrow a Bead of Karma from the local chapel to fix your loot with and then give it back for instance.

Eldonauran

2017-08-22, 02:27 PM

Flanking is an excellent tactic if you outnumber your opponents. If not, the bad guys can flank too and have more freedom to move around and do so to your squishies. Taking them on one on one in a scenario where your number equals theirs denies them that freedom of movement and flanking advantage.

How often are you outnumbered by equal powerful enemies (Your character level -1, or higher) in a one-on-one situation? Because that REALLY shouldn't be happening often unless you are regularly taking on CR+3 fights or more as a general encounter. If you are, you are already so far optimized past the point of the CR system, that it is really of no use to you anymore (or useful to use as a measuring stick in this thread).

Rynjin

2017-08-22, 02:56 PM

You may have missed this line while playing that character:

"If the damage you deal would reduce the object to less than 0 hit points, you can choose to destroy it. If you do not choose to destroy it, the object is left with only 1 hit point and the broken condition."

Therefore you can always choose to not go "full to zero" if you want, regardless of how much you optimize your sunder damage output.

In addition, even if you do "go to zero", items tend to have weak minimum caster level requirements, and CL boosts exist too. Have your cleric borrow a Bead of Karma from the local chapel to fix your loot with and then give it back for instance.

Oh, cool. It was one of my first PF characters and I've never really made a Sunder based one since. Thanks!

How often are you outnumbered by equal powerful enemies (Your character level -1, or higher) in a one-on-one situation? Because that REALLY shouldn't be happening often unless you are regularly taking on CR+3 fights or more as a general encounter. If you are, you are already so far optimized past the point of the CR system, that it is really of no use to you anymore (or useful to use as a measuring stick in this thread).

The CR system is already a very poor metric for what a PC should be able to face. Unless you actively gimp yourself like the Pathfinder Iconics ("Hello I'm a 10th level Ranger that fires a crossbow for 1d6+3 once per round, AMA"), you should be able to 1 v 1 CR = level just fine.

By the CR rules a Human Fighter 1 with PC WBL is an encounter that should require a full party of 1st level characters to face as an "average" encounter. This is ludicrous.

CR = APL are cakewalk encounters no matter how you scale that up. A 10th level party will have zero trouble killing a single Fire Giant. It will be minimally challenging for four of them. Even going by what I assume the CR system was designed to handle (four unoptimized but not gimped PCs using 20 PB and with average HP per level with a party comp of Fighter/Rogue/Cleric/Wizard), those four Fire Giants are not going to be an "Epic" encounter, they are going to be one of the challenging but doable encounters you face that day.

Eldonauran

2017-08-22, 03:05 PM

The CR system is already a very poor metric for what a PC should be able to face. Unless you actively gimp yourself like the Pathfinder Iconics ("Hello I'm a 10th level Ranger that fires a crossbow for 1d6+3 once per round, AMA"), you should be able to 1 v 1 CR = level just fine.
Ok, you are playing in a game optimized past the CR system. Nothing wrong with that. Our table plays that way as well. Using the CR system is a bad metric for this thread then, do you have a better way?

Fighting an equal CR encounter is SUPPOSED to be somewhat of a cake walk, using up a percentage of your daily resources. It is NOT supposed to challenge you to any high level of degree. When I act as DM, I tend to get a little annoyed with how easily the monsters go down and feel that equal CR encounters are not worth the time investment in running the encounter. If I can't occupy my players for at least 5 rounds per fight with an average encounter, then it is a wasted encounter. For this, I change the tactics of the encounter without changing the statistics of the creatures, if possible.

Besides all of that, if the PCs are using sources from other books outside of core, I will engineer my encounters to do the same. They will be exposed to whatever level of power creep they bring in with their characters, in their CR encounters. One of them wants to use a kineticist? They will end up fighting kineticists as NPCs, as well a people used to dealing with kineticists, thus having tactics against them.

Psyren

2017-08-22, 03:07 PM

The game itself tells you that though. "Challenging" doesn't start until CR=APL+1, and that's without taking system mastery/optimization into account, which can easily push the "challenging" bar higher.

Really though, the main takeaway should be that CR is not gospel or immutable law, but merely a guideline.

ExLibrisMortis

2017-08-22, 03:30 PM

BS. The core expectation is that the minimum size of a party is 3 characters. The APL calculation can´t scale lower than that.
Uh, what? You are way wrong.

APL rules say the following:

If your group contains three or fewer players, subtract one from their average level [to get APL].
A creature that possesses class levels, but does not have any racial Hit Dice, is factored in as a creature with a CR equal to its class levels –1.
A normal encounter has APL = CR.

Ergo, a pc rogue X facing an npc rogue X solo is--by RAW--having an average encounter of APL X - 1 = CR X - 1. I think that's weird, because it's also an average encounter for three rogue Xes, so I adjusted it to be a boss fight, which is hard or epic. But by RAW, you're supposed to be able to solo yourself as average encounter.

Kurald Galain

2017-08-22, 03:32 PM

Because you CMD gets ridiculous at High Lvls,

That depends entirely on what you mean with "high levels".

If you meant level 20, then sure, CMD gets ridiculous. But the problem is that outside of forum theory op, most people never get anywhere close to level 20.

At the levels at which most campaigns actually play, trip and disarm builds are viable. At levels above that, you have retraining rules.

Rynjin

2017-08-22, 03:51 PM

That depends entirely on what you mean with "high levels".

If you meant level 20, then sure, CMD gets ridiculous. But the problem is that outside of forum theory op, most people never get anywhere close to level 20.

At the levels at which most campaigns actually play, trip and disarm builds are viable. At levels above that, you have retraining rules.

Trip and Disarm aren't super viable mostly because a large portion of the bestiary is immune to both than anything else.

Kurald Galain

2017-08-22, 04:25 PM

Trip and Disarm aren't super viable mostly because a large portion of the bestiary is immune to both than anything else.

It's rather funny how you're apparently developed a game style wherein a lot of options just don't do anything, AND you assume this playstyle also applies to every other forum user.

Rynjin

2017-08-22, 04:47 PM

It's rather funny how you're apparently developed a game style wherein a lot of options just don't do anything, AND you assume this playstyle also applies to every other forum user.

Is the playstyle of "Uses things that aren't humanoids with class levels" that uncommon?

Enemies that fly are immune to Trip, and enemies get a scaling bonus to CMD based on both size and number of legs beyond 2 (with things with NO legs also being immune). That covers a fair bit of ground. Trying to trip something that has a CMD vs Trip in the mid 30's by level 10 is really damn hard.

Likewise, Disarm doesn't work on natural weapons, which are the primary attack form for non-humanoid creatures.

Both are extremely binary based on campaign type. Trip is GODLIKE in a campaign primarily centered around humanoids...but those are relatively rare. People like their dungeon crawls too much. Same with Disarm though even in a campaign that IS centered around humanoids it's less useful than you might expect (and the aforementioned Sunder is basically just "This but better"). I will give Disarm this: Deeper into the Disarm Feat tree it has some of the most bitchin' side Feats around. If you manage to make it to about 13th level in a campaign with mostly humanoid weapon wielders you can get up to some fun shenanigans where when somebody attacks you you can catch the blade with one hand, rip it out of their hands, and throw it at another guy as an attack of opportunity (or Immediate action, can't remember which).

But like with everything in PF that's the issue. Unless your character is built around smacking people with a 2H weapon for massive damage you need a bajillion Feats to do anything. And spending all your Feats on a tactic that doesn't work for large swathes of many campaigns (even Paizo published Adventure Paths) is a recipe for disappointment.

Florian

2017-08-23, 12:52 AM

Is the playstyle of "Uses things that aren't humanoids with class levels" that uncommon?

I think that I roughly have a 3:1 ratio of bestiary monsters vs. humanoid with class levels.

Psyren

2017-08-23, 01:11 AM

All the flight in the world doesn't mean anything when the dungeon has low ceilings. I would say fighting outdoors is the real rarity; three dimensions in every single combat, or even most of them, is just another layer of headache for the GM in a game where combat takes too long as it is.

A lot of people also port in the "trip flyers" rules from 3.5. The RAW alternative, an instant drop regardless of height, is a bit harder to swallow.

Kurald Galain

2017-08-23, 01:38 AM

Rynjin

2017-08-23, 01:47 AM

The most important thing to realize is that calling option X a viable tactic does not mean using option X exclusively, all the time, in every single combat. The existence of creatures immune to X does not make X bad; it means you shouldn't build a one-trick pony character.

I mean...I pretty much covered that.

If Pathfinder were more Combat Maneuver friendly as far as people just being able to DO them without Feat investment, you'd have a point. But as-is you absolutely NEED Combat Expertise and Improved Trip/Disarm, and you really want to get Greater to keep up with the DC scaling, since CMD scales harder than CMB does (the latter scaling off BaB+stat and the former scaling off BaB+stat+other stat+size+random modifiers).

So you're 3 Feats deep in a chain just to be able to DO it. It's not viable because in many campaigns it takes more investment than the minor reward.

Look at it this way. In the "playable levels" between 1 and 12 or so you are spending 50% of your Feats from level up to have a solid chance of it working when you CAN use it. Is it worth investing 50% of an inflexible resource pool on something that only works about 25% of the time? And isn't a game changer when it does work?

I think no.

In reasonably houseruled games that remove the AoO from using a Maneuver and that make the Feat investment not so heavy (removing Combat Expertise and rolling Improved/Greater Maneuver into a single Feat that scales at BaB +6) it absolutely is viable. As far as RAW Pathfinder though? Nah.

Gnaeus

2017-08-23, 06:19 AM

I mean...I pretty much covered that.

If Pathfinder were more Combat Maneuver friendly as far as people just being able to DO them without Feat investment, you'd have a point. But as-is you absolutely NEED Combat Expertise and Improved Trip/Disarm, and you really want to get Greater to keep up with the DC scaling, since CMD scales harder than CMB does (the latter scaling off BaB+stat and the former scaling off BaB+stat+other stat+size+random modifiers).

So you're 3 Feats deep in a chain just to be able to DO it. It's not viable because in many campaigns it takes more investment than the minor reward.

Look at it this way. In the "playable levels" between 1 and 12 or so you are spending 50% of your Feats from level up to have a solid chance of it working when you CAN use it. Is it worth investing 50% of an inflexible resource pool on something that only works about 25% of the time? And isn't a game changer when it does work?

I think no.

In reasonably houseruled games that remove the AoO from using a Maneuver and that make the Feat investment not so heavy (removing Combat Expertise and rolling Improved/Greater Maneuver into a single Feat that scales at BaB +6) it absolutely is viable. As far as RAW Pathfinder though? Nah.

Oh, it's a fantastic tactic. Allmost all PCs are humanoids, and a great many use weapons. So in an NPC party or rebuilt monster you can really challenge characters without really risking one shot kills like overwhelming damage builds.

Oh, did they mean for PCs? Well, if you can backport 3.5 so that your spiked chain wielder is a war troll it works ok. Otherwise it's trash.

Kurald Galain

2017-08-23, 08:05 AM

So you're 3 Feats deep in a chain just to be able to DO it. It's not viable because in many campaigns it takes more investment than the minor reward.
But that's completely wrong. None of the feats allow you to DO it. Rather, one feat is a prerequisite and the other two feats give you a +10% bonus.

Instead of combat exp, try Dirty Fighting or Maneuver Monk. If the AOO bothers you, try using a reach weapon, or stealthing, or pulling it on flat-footed enemies. Or play a Magus and spellcombat with True Strike to ensure your hit. Use tactics instead of complaining that a +10% chance is somehow mandatory.

And yes, in numerous of Paizo's adventure paths as well as in PFS, the majority of enemies you're fighting will be humanoids wielding weapons.

Of course, this doesn't really help a core-only Rogue.

Footman

2017-08-23, 08:48 AM

After thinking a bit, i found out, there is a build that Works for the Core Rogue, but it comes online very late. Since the OP wanted a 20th Lvl build, this build could Work:

1. Take the Scout Archetype. (1 Attack Auto Sneak Attack, after moving at least 10 Feat at Lvl 8)
2. Take the Feats: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, and the Vital Strike Line of Feats, get Rapid Reload (Heavy Crossbow), and Crossbow Mastery (Heavy Crossbow).
3. Take the Major Magic Rogue Talent (Gravity Arrow), or just by some wands with that spell. (Increases the Weapon one Size Category up.)
4. Be a Half Elf, and Take the Elf Favorite Class Bonus, to get more uses of your Major Magic.
5. Get yourself some greater Sniper Googles. (Sneak Attack at any range +2 Damage per Sneak Attack Die.)
6. Buy a Heavy Crossbow +5 (Large), with the endless Amunition enchantment (can be used as Medium creature but not reloded. You take a -2 on Attack rolls.)
7. Shoot Stuff. You only get one Target per Turn, but the Damage will be somewhat Decent for a Core Rogue:
Damage: 10d6 Sneak Attack Dice: Averange Damage: 35 + 2 per Sneak attack Dice: 55 + 6 Devastating Strike 61 + 12d8 Greater Vital Strike, Averange Damage 54 = 105 + the +5 Weapon = 110 Damage on the single Shot you can make per round.

While this build won't knock anyones Socks of, and comes online far to late to be of any use in most Games that don't start very High Lvl, it is a High Lvl "Core" Rogue build, that should be workable Damagewise.

Rynjin

2017-08-23, 01:33 PM

But that's completely wrong. None of the feats allow you to DO it. Rather, one feat is a prerequisite and the other two feats give you a +10% bonus.

Instead of combat exp, try Dirty Fighting or Maneuver Monk. If the AOO bothers you, try using a reach weapon, or stealthing, or pulling it on flat-footed enemies. Or play a Magus and spellcombat with True Strike to ensure your hit. Use tactics instead of complaining that a +10% chance is somehow mandatory.

So you're making a situational tactic EVEN MORE SITUATIONAL by requiring specialized other tactics to attempt a maneuver that has little chance of success and will have a marginal impact on the combat at best.

I'm not sure why you're stretching the use of the word viable to "Anything that technically has a non-zero chance to succeed". Particularly when you admit that the class we're discussing in this thread can't even do most of that in the first place.

Sagetim

2017-08-23, 03:39 PM

Rynjin

2017-08-23, 03:56 PM

I mean, I think this fits within the guidelines of the first post (at least insofar as 'be useful by level 20'). 110 damage isn't inconsequential, even if it's not going to one shot the bigger things around. It falls within the category of usefully contributing to the combat at hand, even if it doesn't do the wizard's job of taking out massive numbers with huge aoe attacks. Which is the wizard's job. And maybe sometimes the Cleric or Druid.

If we open it up to Unchained Rogue it's actually not too bad a tradeoff. 110 damage plus a penalty to hit or AC is pretty solid.

13ones

2017-08-23, 04:26 PM

After knocking this around for a couple days I basically came up only with a really solid Rogue17/Horizon Walker3 build that gets a KI pool, Invisible Blade advanced trick, and eventually Dimensional Savant to flank with itself as a full attack. It's feat intensive but provides a rather impressive 'anime ninja' kind of feel to it while still keeping the core rogue at the center of the build. I lose the cap stone but the chained rogue cap stone is worse anyways.

Yes taking this option as Ninja is probably better because the Ninja's KI pool is better simply because you can spend the point to get the extra attack. If I could get the Ninja's KI pool to proc off Wis without sacrificing so many Ninja levels I would probably do that.

*longing sigh* if only the Slayer had the option to take the Rogue's KI pool by spending a Slayer talent to get a rogue talent. If only.

But honestly the Horizon Walker build is better on anything else that sneak attacks. The Rogue, as a class, is just something that seems more appealing to me as a character concept as a sort of low magic alternative to Alchemists and Bards.

To quote Maes Hughes "I'm as normal as they come and this is a contest of freaks! What do you want me to do, shoot my slingshot at him?" Thats the kind of feel I'd be trying to get by picking a rogue.

Vhaidara

2017-08-23, 04:28 PM

All the flight in the world doesn't mean anything when the dungeon has low ceilings. I would say fighting outdoors is the real rarity; three dimensions in every single combat, or even most of them, is just another layer of headache for the GM in a game where combat takes too long as it is.

Not really? You can fly 3 inches off the ground and be just as immune to trips as if you're 300ft in the air

Psyren

2017-08-23, 05:52 PM

Not really? You can fly 3 inches off the ground and be just as immune to trips as if you're 300ft in the air

Source for this? I'm having trouble finding the rules for movement within a square.

Vhaidara

2017-08-23, 06:44 PM

Source for this? I'm having trouble finding the rules for movement within a square.

You just...use your fly speed while staying at ground level. There's no rules saying you have to go above ground level to fly, are there?

Necroticplague

2017-08-23, 06:48 PM

Why would people build only ground-level traps in a world where sentient creatures can fly? Flying is nowhere near the same as 'immune to traps'.

Rynjin

2017-08-23, 07:31 PM

You just...use your fly speed while staying at ground level. There's no rules saying you have to go above ground level to fly, are there?

It does take a relatively difficult Fly check to hover, but that's really only an issue for characters with a Fly speed below Average maneuverability and no ranks.

Why would people build only ground-level traps in a world where sentient creatures can fly? Flying is nowhere near the same as 'immune to traps'.

Blink a couple of times and read the statement again. You confused a letter. =)

Psyren

2017-08-23, 07:37 PM

You just...use your fly speed while staying at ground level. There's no rules saying you have to go above ground level to fly, are there?

The smallest unit of distance measurement I see defined in D&D is 5ft. The only thing below that is 0ft. I might be missing something though.

Vhaidara

2017-08-23, 07:46 PM

The smallest unit of distance measurement I see defined in D&D is 5ft. The only thing below that is 0ft. I might be missing something though.

Indeed, but there's also nothing saying that if you're at ground level you are using a land speed. Or are lantern archons unable to come within 5ft of the ground by virtue of only having a fly speed? Can fish that only have a swim speed not swim within 5ft of the ocean bottom, where people could walk?

Remember that the point is that you don't need 10ft of clearance to use a fly speed, and therefore to fly, and therefore to be immune to trips

Kurald Galain

2017-08-24, 01:14 AM

It's nevertheless a fair point that, when the books don't explicitly state either way, you can't automatically assume that the GM is going to rule in your favor.

Anyway, the point is that just because SOME creatures cannot be tripped, doesn't mean that ALL tripping is worthless. I've seen (and played) some highly effective trip builds. The key is to have OTHER abilities available, and not to over-invest feats and items in a single shtick.

It's not that hard, really. Any full-BAB class with a reach weapon is automatically a decent tripper with zero feat investment, and when the maneuver lands it gives +4 to hit to the entire party, and free AOOs if the enemy stands up. It's not that great at level 20 but most people play below level 10 anyway.

Rynjin

2017-08-24, 03:14 AM

Again, still assuming Medium sized Humanoids (or smaller) only. Anything Large or larger doesn't really care about your Reach weapon and imposes an effective penalty on your attack roll for each category above Medium they have (plus whatever they get for bitch slapping you for trying the maneuver in the first place).

(Also minor nitpick, tripping a guy doesn't help your WHOLE party. It's detrimental to ranged attackers.)

I've played effective trippers as well, and have a Monk semi-based around it at the moment (though he's got some Bull Rush action going on too so I can combo trip/throw with Ki Throw), but those have all been in games where the primary enemies are Medium sized humanoids.

As I already acknowledged, trip is AMAZING in that arena (my GM and I actually have a bit of a gentleman's agreement to not let the trip machining get too out of hand in the current game), but it really does struggle elsewhere.

Florian

2017-08-24, 04:04 AM

@Rynjin:

D20 basically only covers 2D combat by working with 5ft. x 5ft. squares that actually don´t have a real hight going. Stuff like flying 3ft. above the ground is simply not covered by the rules, so it makes no sense to rule that something that is not covered simply has no effect, when it´s more like we actually have to talk about what counts as "flying" in the first place.

Grod_The_Giant

2017-08-24, 06:52 AM

Tripping is still significantly better than disarming. You can trip (or try to trip) anything up to 1 size category larger than you that isn't flying. That's a lot of things, especially since Enlarge Person is only a first-level spell. You can only disarm things with weapons. In a world with monsters, that's a lot fewer things.

The smallest unit of distance measurement I see defined in D&D is 5ft. The only thing below that is 0ft. I might be missing something though.
Are you... are you arguing that it's impossible to move less than 5ft at a time in D&D?

Psyren

2017-08-24, 08:56 AM

Are you... are you arguing that it's impossible to move less than 5ft at a time in D&D?

What I'm saying is that if the ceiling is low enough, you shouldn't be able to simply say "I fly half an inch" and be immune to anything on the ground.

Kurald Galain

2017-08-24, 09:11 AM

Are you... are you arguing that it's impossible to move less than 5ft at a time in D&D?

More to the point, if a creature has both a flying speed and a walking speed, AND it is currently at ground level, will that creature be (a) walking because that feels more natural to the creature, or (b) flying because the DM knows that tripping exists and wants to deny that option to his players?

Vhaidara

2017-08-24, 09:16 AM

What I'm saying is that if the ceiling is low enough, you shouldn't be able to simply say "I fly half an inch" and be immune to anything on the ground.

So what happens to lantern archons when there isn't enough clearance to be 5ft off the ground? Do they lose the ability to use their fly speed? If they don't, then why should anyone else? There is nothing (that I know of) that says you need to have a 5ft cube between you and the ground in order to use a fly speed.

Sagetim

2017-08-24, 09:16 AM

The smallest unit of distance measurement I see defined in D&D is 5ft. The only thing below that is 0ft. I might be missing something though.

In 3.5, the Elocator has Scorn Earth which specifies floating 1 foot above the ground. While it's not Pathfinder, it is a solid example of 'you can float in increments of less than 5 feet'. Now, while that is an example with one specific ability, where you go from there depends on how you want to interpret the rules. Scorn Earth as an exception means that everyone else is stuck with flying around and levitating and floating in 5 foot increments, while if Scorn Earth is simply used as an example of the rules in action then we are left with people being able to reasonably state 'I fly 3 inches off the ground at them'.

Another specific example from 3.5 is Tome of Battle's Searing Charge, where you are given a 60ft flaming flight speed with a charge as part of the attack. Since Charges are straight line (usually), if you use that on someone on the ground, it would reasonably mean that you aren't shooting 5 feet into the air, then diving at them, but rather that you are shooting straight at them with your feet barely touching the ground, if at all.

Furthermore, is there anything in the specific descriptions of Fly, Levitate, and so on that specify you Have to use 5 foot increments in your movement? I know the game wants you to use a map with squares on it for combat* in more recent editions, but 4th was the one that turned everything into squares of distance instead of measurements.

*and to buy their miniatures and laminated map squares, ostensibly for use in your games.

Reasonably speaking, yeah, ceilings do limit how high you can get off the ground, but if you're flying I'm not aware of any rule that requires you to remain vertical. If you lay down while flying, instead of sticking your character's height + flight height into the air, you're more like flight height and some number of inches in the air. This might actually make it easier to navigate more cramped locations (like tunnels with a 5ft roof), but if you're not careful about your flight timing, you're going to 'land' with a belly flop onto the ground instead of on your feet. Which seems like it would be bad if you keep a bandoleer of dangerous chemicals or potions on your chest.

Edit: Also, when it comes to tripping, just because you don't send someone hurtling to the ground, doesn't mean they are going to be happy about being sent spinning around in the air until they manage to stop themselves or air friction brings them to a halt. It may not be rules as written, but I'd certianly interpret concentration checks or something to avoid nausea if someone tripped the crap out of a person who is flying by magical means. After all, the tilta-whirl can make people throw up, so can being spun around in the air by what would have been a trip if gravity were acting normally in regards to you.