A radical concept?

[Ahnehnois]

That can be a part of the class, but it really disheartens me when I ask people what exactly rogue is supposed to be good at and the first answer is "high single target damage."

That much I agree with.

I just would rather reward rogues for high Int/Wis/Cha instead of encouraging them to be dump Int. For me, a rogue should generally have good mental statistics. A more important goal would be to lessen the importance of the physical ones and reward high mental abilities, rather than making Int irrelevant. Not a simple fix.

 

[tylermalan]

Remove int as a needed stat, and establish rogue class as the king of skills.

Doesn't the rogue already have more skills than any other class without an Int bonus?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

In 3E, the class skill system formed niche protection for rogue (and bard), in PF, class skills mean almost nothing. PF also seemingly replaced rogue with bard as the skill class. Versatile Performance ends up meaning Bard with equal Int has more skills than a Rogue. Jack of All Trades is major toe-stepping.

And ultimately, I've found Rogue is such a MAD class that anyone with a high ability score that maxes a skill will be better at it than the rogue. Any Sorc will be much better at UMD. Any Druid, Monk, Ranger, or Cleric will be much better at Perception, possibly enough so to actually surpass the rogue's trapfinding bonus when using that skill to search!

In 3E, Rogue was the best man in the party at a lot of important skills. In PF, he's mediocre or above average in them, but doesn't really excel at anything except trapfinding...maybe (yay?), at will detect magic makes magic traps cake to find... Any small advantage he can get from having a lot of class skills can be gained by anyone just by dipping one level.

 

[tylermalan]

Good points, I see. Isn't the Rogue still pretty much the best at certain things, like Disable Device and Sneaky Stuff?

 

[Donal Graeme]

I have thought of this issue before, and not simply with the Rogue class. Both the Bard and the Monk suffer from a similar problem. All three classes use lots of stats in different ways, forcing concessions. My original solution was geared towards the monk class, but could be applied here.

For the monk, my idea was to make it so that monks used their wisdom modifier, not their intelligence modifier, to determine bonus skill points.

For a rogue the solution is just as easy. Add a new rogue trick, one which allows a rogue to use charisma instead of intelligence to determine bonus skill points.

The same feature could be applied to bards as well if need be.