Longsword finesse, wait wuh?!

[Mengu]

Longsword finesse is pretty stinky, unless you are an eladrin rogue|wizard hybrid, putting every feat you've got into that longsword.

This is obviously not true in absurbum eg +20 damage is >> +1 to hit. For a rapier (or Double sword abomination) rogue you can get +4 damage with a 2w power for -1 to hit, ie a lot of your attacks by 7th level. Even +2 for 1w powers does more damage in normal circumstances. Once you are using a d4 weapon the extra w look very unappealing so you tend to choose powers with other effects, which exacerbates the difference from a damage focused rapier user.
(My dagger rogue does noticeably less damage than my mate's rapier rogue but I apply lots of status effects).

And there is also half-orc rogues, who pretty much lose out on a nice racial feature if they use a d4 instead of a d8 weapon.

 

[eriktheguy]

This is obviously not true in absurbum eg +20 damage is >> +1 to hit. For a rapier (or Double sword abomination) rogue you can get +4 damage with a 2w power for -1 to hit, ie a lot of your attacks by 7th level. Even +2 for 1w powers does more damage in normal circumstances. Once you are using a d4 weapon the extra w look very unappealing so you tend to choose powers with other effects, which exacerbates the difference from a damage focused rapier user.
(My dagger rogue does noticeably less damage than my mate's rapier rogue but I apply lots of status effects).

I would dual wield rapier dagger, and use the dagger for sneak attacks and attacks that NEED to hit (ie blind, prone, slides off cliffs) while reserving the rapier for attacks that have high [W] and/or aren't sneak attacks.
I still like the dagger master path, as crits on 18-20 are amazing for 3+ dice of sneak attack, and it basically opens up another paragon feat for you.

 

[Goumindong]

Daggermaster is good, but the low damage die on the weapon does mean that its not explicitly better than the higher W with a slightly lower attack. Especially since its only 1 feat to get most of the high crit bonus that makes the daggermaster really good.

But is it good enough to turn the advantages of a master spy[bluff as a minor action], 3[W] weapon vs will encounter attack, the ability to force a monster to attack itself with your sneak attack damage... and disarm it. And the ability to benefit from an enemies aura 1/encounter on a successful bluff?

Or does it cover the shadow assassin, which deals damage when its missed by an attack AND gets another d6 sneak attack against bloodied enemies.

Or a ghost of eventide, another d6 damage on all attacks where you have concealment. And a possible 4[W] encounter power?

Or the daring acrobats simply amazing lvl 20 daily(6[W] for the most part that you can use on a charge that more often than not will grant another basic attack with a massive bonus or let you spend a surge]

And there are a lot more other strong options out there that you have to give up for that 18-20 bonus.

 

[DracoSuave]

To be fair to the dagger tho, the math changes dramaticly when you reach paragon and can Daggermaster. 18-20 crit is nuffin to sneeze at.

 

[eriktheguy]

To be fair to the dagger tho, the math changes dramaticly when you reach paragon and can Daggermaster. 18-20 crit is nuffin to sneeze at.

I dream of playing one of these someday

In any case, I think it makes sense to houserule for any campaign that the racial weapon rogue feats do not reduce sneak attack damage. The sword offers an increase of die size by one, the axe increases it by 2 sizes and reduces attack bonus. In either case, I see balance, and the potential for an interesting build and the use of other racial weapon feats. It would be plenty cool to see one of these builds so I think they should be encouraged, not discouraged.
Brutal sneak attacks, lol.

 

[Goumindong]

To be fair to the dagger tho, the math changes dramaticly when you reach paragon and can Daggermaster. 18-20 crit is nuffin to sneeze at.

Not that dramatically. 18-20 crit instead of a 20 crit is +.1 x crit dmg -.1 reg damage

So on a 2[w] attack you're adding 8+dex+18+3d? x .1 and subtracting .1 x 5 +dex + 10.5

Or you could just write it like this .1 x (max-avg+crit die) or for a 2[w] attack you're looking at an extra 2.1 dmg/attack[assuming d6 crit die and d6 sneak, its slightly higher for higher crit die and sneak on a +3 weapon]

Which just barely brings the average extra damage above the average extra damage for the larger weapon[assuming the same to hit chance you're up by 1.1] before figuring any extra bonuses that other paragon classes get. I don't want to bother figuring out what the real differences are at the moment in expected damage output but i am willing to bet that they're pretty close to each other for the most part

Not to say it isn't good, its just not as good as a lot of people claim. And once you're in epic tier the dagger probably loses that advantage as the other user can pick up mastery and fewer 1[w] attacks exist where the low W weapon has such an advantage.

 

[Jhaelen]

Not that dramatically. 18-20 crit instead of a 20 crit is +.1 x crit dmg -.1 reg damage

I think you didn't think to add the damage from using a magic dagger that adds bonus dice on a crit. This definitely has a noticeable effect on your average damage.

 

[Thundershield]

I think you didn't think to add the damage from using a magic dagger that adds bonus dice on a crit. This definitely has a noticeable effect on your average damage.

And if you really really want to bump your crit damage, there's also the Rogue Weapon Mastery feat from Martial Power to give you another 3d4 (at Epic), or 3d6 if you're using Meditation of the Blade.

 

[Goumindong]

I think you didn't think to add the damage from using a magic dagger that adds bonus dice on a crit. This definitely has a noticeable effect on your average damage.

No, I did. My crit damage expression for the 2.1 was 3d6 @ paragon, or +10.5 damage or +1.05 avg/dmg swing of the 2.1 dmg/swing bonus from the extra crit. Its a full half of the bonus average damage you gain from the property change.

With a vicious weapon that is +1.9 dmg/swing upping your damage by .85 at the margin. Add in on top of that a d8 sneak attack die and you're looking at a total of +3.25dmg/swing

On a 3[W] attack, a rapier gains roughly +2 dmg/hit per W, or an average of 3 dmg/swing @ 50% hit rate[dagger will be +1 to hit ahead, but its not that much of a difference]. On a 2[W] attack its 2 dmg/swing from the rapier, nearly as much as the advantage from dagger master.

For instnace if you're a charisma rogue you can run shadow assaasin and get another d6 sneak attack against bloodied enemies and +dex damage each time you're missed. Since youhave a nice bonus to your AC against OA's[and since attacks against you by marked creatures are likely to trigger extra damage from your defender or at least add another +6 damage over 50% of the time] you're ahead in raw DPR simply by provoking an OA once/round. Not even counting the fact that half the time you get another +3.5 avg dmg/attack[1.75/swing vs bloodied, .875 dmg/all swings] This brings your pre-weapon mastery damage difference to around .5 between the two[ignoring extra damage caused by triggering OA's intentionally]

 

[Stalker0]

Crits aren't just about the damage. Daggermaster's are one of the few classes I consider it worth it to pick up crit related feats. Also items like solitaire's are great with high crit rates.