Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
ShortQuests -- individual adventure modules! An all-new collection of digest-sized D&D adventures designed to plug in to your game.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2610264" data-attributes="member: 1210">I don't know how much you've dmed straight up rogues in 3e, but I've run a game roughly 1.3 times per week since the game came out.  In my experience, a rogue never outshines a fighter in combat except in certain very narrow, rare cases (e.g. rogue has the weapon to penetrate DR and fighter doesn't, or only the rogue has a flaming weapon and the monster has regeneration that fire overcomes, etc).  The rogue has two main problems in combat that contribute to the combat superiority of the fighter and its brother classes.1. Less chance to hit.  The combination of lower BAB, less feats (which can add to your chance to hit) and a broader need for different types of gear means that fighters are much more likely to put the smack down (again, in my experience- YMMV depending on the campaign).  It also means that Power Attack and Combat Expertise are less attractive, because they make it much less likely that you will actually hit anything. 2. Less hit points.  This is the biggie: while a fighter can handle a few rounds of heavy damage, a rogue usually can't.  The rogue's stats will almost certainly emphasize dex and int over con, while the fighter's con will usually be 1st or 2nd on his list of priorities.  Combined with an average of 2 hp more per level from dice, the fighter is the one who can stand up to the punishment bad guys deal.This combo means that rogues usually are good for a couple of hits in a battle with a big bad guy.  Even then, tons of monsters are immune to sneak attack- and while, yes, that's a feature of the monsters, it's also a built-in balance point for the rogue's sneak attack ability.  So that counts heavily against them.  (Not to mention that lots of undead, at least, have Fort-save targeting abilities...)So sneak attack doesn't make rogues as good as a fighter in melee; it makes it worth it for him to go a few rounds with an enemy.  Meanwhile, the fighter can be in there slugging away.  Sneak attack might allow the rogue to distract the bad guy for a round or two, but if the rogue goes toe to toe with an enemy that would challenge the fighter one on one, he's prolly toast.  Personally, I think nerfing SA like you're proposing makes combat rogues very unattractive (instead of only somewhat unattractive <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />).  However, I could see in a game where the enemies typically have low ACs that the SA/PA or SA/CE combos could get somewhat crazy.  I dunno, when I started running 3e I was dubious about the sneak attack rules but decided to try them out for a while by the book before I changed 'em.  Never felt the need to change 'em after that. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> YMMV though.</blockquote>

Verification