Pathfinder 2E Paizo's Stephen Radney-MacFarland Previews The Rogue Class For Pathfinder 2nd Edition!

We saw the fighter last week; today it's the turn of the rogue! Paizo's Stephen Radney-MacFarland gives the inside scoop on rogue features, and feats.

Rogue by Wayne Reynolds
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What do we know from this latest blog entry? Here's some class features:

• Sneak Attack (1st level) -- Rogues get Sneak Attack as their first class feature. Extra d6s of damage vs. flat-footed foes (such as flanked enemies, or those who fall victim to the Surprise Attack feature).
• Surprise Attack (1st level) -- "during the first round of combat, the rogue treats any creature that has not taken its turn yet as if it were flat-footed."
• Debilitating Strike (9th level) -- entangle or enfeeble targets in addition to damage. Higher levels add more conditions.
• Master Strike (19th level) -- ... culminating in Master Strike, which is an insta-kill at 19th level.
• More skill ranks, proficiencies, and skill feats than any other class. One skill feat per level rather than every other level.

And here's some class feats a rogue can take:

• Nimble Dodge -- +2 AC at a whim.
• Mobility (2nd level) -- move half speed and ignore reactions like attacks of opportunity.
• Reactive Pursuit (4th level) -- a sticky ability which allows the rogue to chase after foes who try to disengage.
• Dead Striker (4th level) -- treat frightened creatures as flat-footed.
• Gang Up (6th level) -- treat enemies within melee range of of your an ally as flat-footed.
• Twist the Knife (6th level) -- if you do sneak attack damage, do ongoing bleeding damage equal to half your sneak attack dice.
• Instant Opening (14th level) -- make a creature within 30' flat-footed until the end of your next turn.
• Cognitive Loophole -- ignore a mental effect for a round before it takes hold.
• Blank Slate (16th level) -- immune to detection, revelation, and scrying effects.

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[Charlaquin]

Ok, I wasn't aware they had revealed this kind of detail yet, so I assumed JRedmond was referring to PF1.

No worries. There’s a lot of details out that are easy to miss if you’re not watching/listening to every playtest sesssion and reading between the lines of every blog post.

 

[Ancalagon]

One thing I've found with RPGs is that you have to play them to appreciate the good (and the not so good) qualities; a read-through of the rules isn't sufficient. You actually have to see the rule elements in play and experience them. As much as I enjoy seeing previews, I'm actively trying to avoid making any value judgments until I see the rules in action. As they say, the play is the thing...

This is true but...

...there are far more games than there is time/$ to play them. Playing them to test them is ideal, but not always feasible

 

[billd91]

The PF1 was reliant on Sneak Attack for damage, which was detrimental for rogues as there were so many monsters immune to sneak attack, critical hits, or even flanking. This made the rogue weak in comparison with a number of similar classes that had other tricks up their sleeve. Will the PF2 rogue have anything to address that?

There aren't all that many monsters in PF that are immune to sneak attacks and critical hits. 3e had a lot that were immune but most of those immunities went away in PF.

 

[Arakasius]

Yeah, PF1 barely had any immune monters with sneak attacks. The list is basically elementals, oozes and aeons. Undead and constructs were the two big immune types in 3.5 that became vulnerable in PF1. Note one thing that was disclosed in the LPs but not in this blog is that rogues do roll their sneak attack dice on crits. So yeah crits with a rogue will be crazy, well worth the occasional times where it doesn't go off.

 

[Henry]

Wow. I guess they're probably going to rename it from "Rogue" to what it is: "Action-Hero" or maybe "Ninja-Jedi-Batman-Genius".

All we see is combat, combat, combat, combat, combat, combat, combat, combat and combat; oh and a totally transparent attempt to hide "and extra COMBAT stuff you can add yourself" under the guise of "and extra skills and feats".

I wasn't a big fan of PF1. Definitely avoiding PF2. No point if this is the direction they are taking things. I mean, they HAVE to 'balance' the other classes to this monstrosity of a combat monster. So PF2 seems to be focused on three pillars too I guess. But PF2's three pillars are Combat, Killing and Fighting.

...sigh... Oh well...

^_^

Paul L. Ming

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

I’ll feel a lot better come August when we can have examples behind these opinions. As it is, everyone’s seeing certain things and judging them by what has come before. I have my concerns with parts of it, too, but saying this and all previous editions are focused on nothing but combat is pretty hyperbolic, IMO. There is plenty of great roleplay to be had in every version of D&D, otherwise we wouldn’t have actual play podcasts on it all over the place (because it’s pretty boring to listen to just combat, quite frankly).

 

[jmucchiello]

They are trying to eliminate "rocket tag" but rogue gets an insta-kill power at 19th level. Okaaaay.

 

[Arakasius]

Plenty of classes had insta kills as capstones in PF1, plus many caster spells at high levels also did it. But pretty much all of them had catches like fairly reasonable saves. Aka it’s going to kill something lower level a decent amount of the time but that’s it.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

I’ll feel a lot better come August when we can have examples behind these opinions. As it is, everyone’s seeing certain things and judging them by what has come before. I have my concerns with parts of it, too, but saying this and all previous editions are focused on nothing but combat is pretty hyperbolic, IMO. There is plenty of great roleplay to be had in every version of D&D, otherwise we wouldn’t have actual play podcasts on it all over the place (because it’s pretty boring to listen to just combat, quite frankly).

It's just that THIS version of "Rogue" basically, to me, seems to out-fight, out-damage, and out-defend the PF1 Fighter. That's why I commented that in order for this Rogue to not be, well, the "Win Button Class" that Paizo will have to have all other classes just as heavily built towards combat. I shudder to think what they are going to have to do with the Fighter class.

As for the "roleplaying" side of D&D. Yes, you can RP anything, really. Hell, you can RP a game of Monopoly if you want! That said, any *new* players bellying up to the table for the first time, with no experience in RPG's...they're going to get a seriously warped view of what a table top RPG is/can be (IMHO, of course). A player who learns PF2 and plays a Rogue is going to be totally confused as to what's going on when they sit down to play some OSR game, Warhammer Fantasy RP, Call of Cthulhu, or even 5e. Their "expectations" of what a TTRPG is will likely focus on combat...and all that "other stuff in the game" is likely to be seen as nothing but set dressing for the combats.

Then again..I am an old fart with a terminal case of Grognardis Cumudgeonitis, so there is that!

At any rate...I hope this "first pass" at the Rogue gets some serious changes to balance it to be not so combat-centric.

Wait...why am I commenting here? I'm not going to play PF2 in all likelihood. What am I doing here? What? Eh? What's that? I can't hear you over the roar of my own One True Way To Play prejudice. And GET OFFA MY LAWN YA NO GOOD KIDS! *grumble grumble*

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Charlaquin]

It's just that THIS version of "Rogue" basically, to me, seems to out-fight, out-damage, and out-defend the PF1 Fighter. That's why I commented that in order for this Rogue to not be, well, the "Win Button Class" that Paizo will have to have all other classes just as heavily built towards combat. I shudder to think what they are going to have to do with the Fighter class.

Well, we have seen the Fighter class, and to me it seems far more combat-capable than this rogue does. Personally though, I don’t see a problem with raising the combat power bar across the board, so long as there is also mechanical support given to non-combat activities as well. And I think we’re getting a lopsided view here because they’re not ready to reveal Skill Feats yet, which I think will be a big source of that non-combat crunch that seems to be missing here.

As for the "roleplaying" side of D&D. Yes, you can RP anything, really. Hell, you can RP a game of Monopoly if you want! That said, any *new* players bellying up to the table for the first time, with no experience in RPG's...they're going to get a seriously warped view of what a table top RPG is/can be (IMHO, of course). A player who learns PF2 and plays a Rogue is going to be totally confused as to what's going on when they sit down to play some OSR game, Warhammer Fantasy RP, Call of Cthulhu, or even 5e. Their "expectations" of what a TTRPG is will likely focus on combat...and all that "other stuff in the game" is likely to be seen as nothing but set dressing for the combats.

I don’t think many people are going to be learning PF2 as their first TTRPG, to be honest, and those that do are going to have a lot more expectations set by it that are going to be more far jarring to have broken than a heavy combat focus.

 

[Aldarc]

Yes. But, that is more on the monster design side of things which is another blog entirely.

I will admit that when I re-read the rogue preview I am increasingly worried about the rogue. It seems that many abilities that should be fairly basic for the rogue are being pushed back and gated late in the game at the time when wizards and other spellcasters are doing far more spectacular things. This does not seem like it would solve the problem of the rogue from PF1, and arguably sounds like several steps back and not forward from the PF1 Unchained Rogue.