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Message: <blockquote data-quote="WalterKovacs" data-source="post: 5363893" data-attributes="member: 63763">Generally speaking, a balanced encounter will either have minions involved, or the number of monsters won't outnumber the party. Maybe one or two extra monsters at most. So a scenario where the rogue is surrounded and only the fighter is anywhere around is a bit of a loaded scenario. Other party members do have some stuff to contribute, not just damage, but means of making it a bit harder for the party to surround one of their allies. Now, I do have some players who play strikers that charge in and get surrounded before the rest of the party can catch up, but that's more a lack of strategy/forethought than anything else. Your list of people with worse AC sort of ignores a few factors ... A warlock doesn't use Int as his attack stat. So he can be in line with a rogue if he goes 18/18 and the Rogue doesn't go with 20 Dex. A rogue, especially a thief, has very little to lose if going with 20 Dex. The Cha/Str based tricks aren't too powerful, while Dex doesn't just improve AC, but also attack rolls and damage. A melee ranger gets hide (as does a barbarian), but they still need to put points into dex (16 and 14 respectively) to be on par with a rogue, which means taking away from their secondary stat (Wis, Con/Cha respectively, not counting the dual wielding barbarian). For shieldless classes, Rogue's AC is quite good, especially if the difference between a defender (who have the best AC in the game with a shield) is that the defender has an extra 2 points of AC from their heavy shield (or equivalent). The rogue has mobility. While being stuck in the situation may hurt, if the rogue survives he can get out of it on the following turn. And on that turn he can yell at the leader, the controler, and any other players at the table for letting the rogue and the fighter take on the entire mass of melee baddies on their own. With the various tricks, the rogue can get in and out of flanks (escape artist even allows it on the same turn, and a number of tricks make flanking unneccesary). As such, the rogue can position itself close enough to the fighter to benefit from marking/aura, although it also requires the fighter get himself into good positioning as well. Any other allies in melee should hopefully do their job and make it a little more difficult for any one member of the party to be swarmed by minions or every monster on the field.</blockquote>

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