Rating Rogue Talents

[Mojo_Rat]

Then show me where the eratta for OD is then. Because the Rogue page still shows it as only +1 AC and never getting better, which is really weak.

on Rogue - Pathfinder_OGC

under Offensive Defense

Offensive Defense** (Ex): When a rogue with this talent hits a creature with a melee attack that deals sneak attack damage, the rogue gains a +1 dodge bonus to AC for each sneak attack die rolled. Source: Advanced Player's Guide




When they did the APh errata it was changed i will see if i can find a link to the eratta

here on Paizos site on the APG

http://paizo.com/download/pathfinder/AdvancedPlayersGuideErrata1_0.zip

 

[Friend of the Dork]

Trap Spotter rating 1? Am I missing something here? Not having to actively search is awesome in my book, and can really speed up dungeon delwing. And in a dungeon filled with traps of course the Rogue walks first, if he doesen't he's not doing his job. After the barbarian or fighter trigger the 3rd trap I think they would insist, and as stated the Rogue just doesen't have the combat ability to say no to them

Back in the day the Rogue was varied, but now they are the class with the best Perception and Disable Device against traps, no hands down. Which means there is no one better for going first in corridors, checking each door, etc. before the party enters. Once enemies are spotted or doors are opened however, the Fighter etc. will probably go in first again (that's HIS job).

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Maybe it's just my experience and it's highly game-dependent, but I've typically found it not a problem to just take 10 and tell the DM I'm checking the door, chests, path we walk down, etc... the basic stuff. In fact, so common was this style of play that 4E made a "passive search" function part of their rules. Why do I think this is fairly prevalent? Because I've also had DMs that made you declare what you were searching. It...was "interesting." In the sense of game-lengthening boring dragged out monotonous drivel "interesting." So, IMHO Trap Spotter is one of those things that sounds great hypothetically and looks important on paper, but in actual play, metagame elements make it fairly moot and you'd be wasting a precious class feature to pick it up (again, IMHO).

For the record, when I started playing rogues in 3E, I loved to dip Barb 1 for fast movement, because I honestly thought the ability to search for traps at a half speed of 20, equal to anyone in medium/heavy armor, small characters, and dwarves (ie, "the speed the party is probably moving at normally because surely they have one of those") was so super important to achieve, so that my searching wouldn't slow down the party. I later learned it really wasn't that important, almost no one uses (non-mithral) heavier armors, and almost no one plays small races or much of anything other than Human.

I did discover Barb/Rogue multiclassing was an awesome combo for other things, though.

 

[Mojo_Rat]

Its been discussed alot int he Ninja stuff in the playtest. But basically the value of Trapfinding is totally dependant on the game. I dont have any experience with it but apparently its easier to just ignore Traps and heal your fighter after he sets them off than to worry about wether the rogue can disarm them.

since we started PF only one player in our group has played a rogue so it hasnt come up and he was killed by assasin vines in book two of second darkness

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I may need to revise some ratings, now that I look at it. Specifically:

-Upgrade Offensive Defense, it does seem promising upon further examination.
-Lower Major and Minor Magic, as the more I read them, the more it seems you're stuck with the same spell choice forever. That's pretty lame for what are already extremely low level limited use spells, may as well just shrug and buy more stuff to use with Use Magic Device at that point.
-Lower Powerful Sneak to 1 *, the maths seem to make it a bad trade until extremely high levels.
-Lower Deadly Sneak, the math seems to make it take longer to pay off than I expected.
-Lower Dispelling Attack, in light of its 2 pre-reqs being judged as less useful and really being kind of underwhelming in its own right.


And I may have been too kind overall. All but one of my 4 star ratings were for bonus feat talents, and using a class feature to pick up a (in all but 2 cases) specific feat is pretty lame if not also underpowered.

EDIT: And I somehow left out Opportunist! Fixing that...

 

[Jadeite]

Powerful sneak should never be used. It's horrible. The only time it's useful is when you would only hit on a 20 without it or on a 2 when using it. The average damage per sneak die rolled is increased by less than 5 percent. Even without the penalty it would not be a very good choice since there are much better SA riders.
Deadly sneak is a slightly better, you'll need the utterly worthless powerful sneak to take it. I'd say it's not worth two rogue talents either.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Not to mention you can only use it on a full attack sneak attack, something you can't rely on happening even a majority or rounds, necessarily. Yeah, I'm dropping their rankings.

EDIT: The actual damage averages for regular sneak attack, powerful sneak, and deadly sneak (unless I messed up the math somewhere):

regular sneak: 3.5 damage per d6
powerful sneak: 3.67 (3 2/3 more precisely) per d6; +0.17 damage per die
deadly sneak: 4 damage per d6; +0.5 damage per die

So, using the "power attack / deadly aim" model, the -2 attack should be giving +4 damage to become a fair trade. For powerful sneak, you'd need... ~23.5 sneak attack dice to get that. Yeah, that's freaking terrible. For deadly sneak, you'd need... 8 sneak attack dice, ie Rogue 15, for a fair trade. So yeah, overall, Deadly Sneak is actually a roughly equal trade (slightly worse at level 10, slightly better at 20, even at 15). Of course, "pulling even" isn't an amazing benefit for a high level class feature with an utterly atrocious pre-req.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

OP has been updated with a review of the Ultimate Combat rogue talents.

 

[1Mac]

I remember when the OP went up. Quite interesting! Since so many of the talents you blammed were so blammed because they were limited to one use per day, how would your ratings change if these abilities could be used more frequently? They could either just always be on, or powered by a generous pool or Ki or Rage type resources.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I was actually thinking of "what if the once/day abilities were once per day + one use per ki spent" like the playtest ninja...before that got nerfed.

They're definitely be more useful, probably in general go up a star rating. I just don't know, other than stuff you really really can't fail (like Bluff) if it's worth something about equal to a feat just to reroll a specific skill check a few times a day. Skill Mastery to always take 10 is at least as handy for not failing, helps multiple skills, and you get to pick them, rather than be limited to the specfic ones Paizo thinks you should be good at. Yeah, it's an advanced talent, but you only get 4 talents before hitting level 10 anyway (and the X/day talents usually give an extra use per like 5 levels, so it's not like you're getting major use out of them pre-level 10 anyway), so seems like an easy decision to wait for the better option to me. And skill mastery isn't even that great.