Worst class in the entire game.

[angry_bear]

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Well yes, presumably you actually try telling plausible lies. So if a guard spots you in an area meant to be off-limits, using bluff to convince him that you were just lost and oh thanks the gods he's here and does he know the way out is entirely valid and generally better than getting oneself arrested.

As for your second example, what, you've never seen the classic heroic ploy of 'you've left the safety catch on'? If a feint or a bluff gives you a momentary advantage, that's still an advantage. In this case, the enemy is slightly distracted and thus loses their dexterity bonus to AC for a round. Hey, guess what Rogues have that can turn that into a decided win?



There are steps in-between 'about to murder you' and 'willing to help you'. Diplomacy is for when you want to convince the irritated bouncer to let you in, or the cop to forgive your minor indiscretion, or the mob boss to loan you money. Or just about anything else.



Alternately, use it before combat to work out the capabilities of the enemy and whether you should engage or flee. Or when you spot interesting runes on the wall and want to get a clue as to what they might mean. Or when trying to stop an evil ritual and wanting to know how long you have before it is complete.

You seem to, again, be stuck in the mindset of 'if it doesn't help me stab this guy to death right now with no preparation, it is useless'.



He had an 8% chance in the fight because your calculations completely denied him any chance of using his sneak attack, or getting a surprise round, or in general doing anything else to tilt the chances in his favour. Just off the top of my head, by poisoning some steak and leaving it within the dog's scent range.



How does your mind even work? Even arbitrarily denied all his specialist options (like, for example, sneak attack being enabled when you flank an enemy, and thus much easier to do when you have friends), there is still a world of difference between 'cannot take these guys on his own' and 'cannot contribute in a fight against them'.



Really? REALLY? Did it occur to you that it might possibly be that the authors assumed that they didn't need to waste word count on saying 'people do not usually have all-round vision and thus it is possible to sneak up behind them with a good skill check', because only the most anal rules lawyer would try to use that in a serious argument?

We're getting into the territory of 'well the rules don't SAY you can't just keep fighting once dead'.



In what way? In what way is adding another half dozen odd dice onto your attack damage a 'laughable' DPS?



Or he could be using just some of those, because any of them have their own uses and just because it is an option doesn't mean he has to take it.


Or you need a DM willing to say 'yes' to a creative idea, rather than 'no, there's no rules for that'.

Here's a hint - such behavior crops up in most DM-guides as a good idea for a reason.



...and you are accusing us of using straw men? Nobody has said anything like that.

Was just listing a few ways that skills available to a rogue, particularly ones such as bluff can be used to keep NPC's off balance, and how that could come in handy.

Looking at the core classes in the 3.5 PH, I think that the monk class relies on the most factors to be good. I'm not going to say that it's the worst in the game, built correctly and it can be fantastic. However, considering that you need two primary abilities to be high (Dex and Wis), and one to be at least above average (str), you're going to have to play creatively and effectively to bring the best out in that class.