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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bganon" data-source="post: 4588002" data-attributes="member: 60886">Compare Twin Strike with Piercing Strike and run the numbers: against a typical target (Ref two points lower than AC) an 18 Dex dagger-wielding rogue with combat advantage will average nearly 2 hp/round more damage than an 18 Dex longbow archer using Prime Shot.  In fact, the rogue's attack bonus is so high that against many targets the dagger isn't even optimal for Piercing Strike - it's slightly better to use a shortsword for the bigger damage die.This is at level one with no feats or magic items; those pretty much -all- favor the melee rogue (the two attacks from Twin Strike give the ranger a bit more benefit from magic item damage bonuses, but Backstabber and stacking TWF with Weapon Focus more than makes up for this)It's true that Rogues deal significantly less when they don't have CA, and combat advantage is not always easy to get.  But if the archer doesn't even bother going for Prime Shot the rogue only has to get CA on half of all attacks just to break even with the ranger. I think the classes are balanced just fine - sure the melee rogue takes more risk but their reward is a chance to outdamage the archer by nearly as much as the archer outdamages a fighter (two to three points avg damage per round). That seems like a big deal to me.On another note: the way I see it Prime Shot -IS- basically the "penalty" for shooting into melee... but turned into a bonus for -not- shooting into melee.  The mechanics are slightly different, but in the end it winds up doing pretty much the same thing.</blockquote>

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