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rockdeworld
2013-06-10, 07:35 AM
I don't have much experience with design, and welcome criticism for this. My two goals for this are:
1. to raise the rogue from tier 4 to tier 1 (in other words, (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15509799&postcount=63) at least give it the ability to compete with a wizard), and
2. to make every level an awesome level to be a rogue.

But before that, I have to talk about skills. In 3.x, the skill system is supposed to be the rogue's schtick, but it's completely broken and needs a major overhaul. But fixing the entire skill system is too large task to go into here, and there are already plenty of possible fixes, so I don't want to retread known ground. Basically. If you're using the 3.x skill system, the abilities presented below can be accepted without change. If you're using any other system, choose a bonus or other interesting use of the skill abilities that fits within your system.

That said, there's one skill I'd like to change before I start, since I think it's both completely bonkers and closely tied with the rogue class: Sleight of Hand. The fact that a tiny-sized creature with +19 to Sleight of Hand can automatically steal a weapon larger than itself that their enemy is actually wielding at the time makes it absolutely silly, and would completely ruin any attempt at melee combat past level 7 or so if people played it by RAW. I don't think the basic idea of theft in combat is silly. It's actually pretty awesome and I like Final Fantasy games that allow that. But there need to be consequences past "I saw that!" Use this rule (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Revised_Pickpocketing_(3.5e_Variant_Rule)) for pickpocketing instead.


Rogue

"I'm not cher daddy."

Just as fighters spend years training whereas a barbarian just picks up an axe, a rogue is anyone who wants to be stealthy without spending a decade studying the techniques of the fluffy clan ninja style or finding enlightenment in a monastery. Rogues are expected to dodge attacks and magic, disappear into shadows, carry daggers, and totally stab people in the back, or the face, or the leg, or whatever really. Rogues and stabbing just go together.

In terms of player skill, the rogue is closer to the Tome fighter than the thief-acrobat. He has a bunch of floating abilities at any one time and must choose how to best allocate them over the course of a round. Players who want something simple might prefer a thief-acrobat or ninja.

Hit Die: d6
Skill Points: 8+Int
Class Skills: Appraise (Int), Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Int), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Forgery (Int), Gather Information (Cha), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (any) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Open Lock (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), Use Magic Device (Cha), and Use Rope (Dex)
Alignment: Any
Proficiencies: Rogues are proficient with all simple weapons, all light melee weapons, all ranged martial weapons, and the rapier. Rogues are proficient with light armor and light shields.

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Abilities|Savvy Pool
01|+1|+0|+2|+0|Deflection, Luck, Sneak Attack, Finesse, Trapfinding|1
02|+2|+0|+3|+0|Combat Reflexes, Lightning Reflexes|2
03|+3|+1|+3|+1|Blade Flick, Trap Sense, Underground Contacts (Locate Object)|3
04|+4|+1|+4|+1|Reflexive Combat, Uncanny Dodge|4
05|+5|+1|+4|+1|Find An Opening, Full Strip|5
06|+6|+2|+5|+2|Shift, Double Jump|6
07|+7|+2|+5|+2|Cover Me, Underground Contacts (Locate Creature)|7
08|+8|+2|+6|+2|Disguise Surroundings (Seeming, Mirage Arcana), Improved Uncanny Dodge|8
09|+9|+3|+6|+3|Gone Underground, Underground Contacts (Contact Other Plane)|9
10|+10|+3|+7|+3|Out Of Sight, Special Ability|10
11|+11|+3|+7|+3|Ingrain Muscle Memory, Disguise Surroundings (Veil)|12
12|+12|+4|+8|+4|Special Ability|14
13|+13|+4|+8|+4|Step Into Darkness|16
14|+14|+4|+9|+4|Special Ability|18
15|+15|+5|+9|+5|Disguise Surroundings (Screen), Underground Contacts (Discern Location)|20
16|+16|+5|+10|+5|Special Ability|22
17|+17|+5|+10|+5|Greater Shift|24
18|+18|+6|+11|+6|Special Ability|26
19|+19|+6|+11|+6|Shadow Revival|28
20|+20|+6|+12|+6|Two Places At Once, Special Ability|30
[/table]


Savvy Pool (Ex): A rogue gains a pool of savvy points that represent the savviness he picks up just by staying alive. A rogue's savvy pool returns to max at the beginning of his turn.

For purposes of prerequisites, a rogue is considered to have sneak attack equal to half his total savvy pool, rounded up. A Rogue who gains Sneak Attack dice from another class can exchange these dice for 2 Savvy points each. Feats that require a rogue to give up sneak attack dice instead require him to spend a point from his savvy pool per die sacrificed.

Deflection (Ex): Whenever an enemy makes an attack against a rogue, the rogue can spend a point from his savvy pool to force that enemy to reroll his attack. The decision to use this ability must be made before damage is rolled. This is not an action.

Luck (Ex): A rogue can spend a point from his savvy pool to reroll one roll he has just made. If he does, he cannot use the old result. This is not an action.

Sneak Attack (Ex): As a free action, a rogue can spend a point from his savvy pool to gain sneak attack +1d6 until the start his next turn. This ability works as with the 3.5 rogue with one exception: creatures immune to critical hits or precision damage instead take half damage from a rogue's sneak attack. A rogue attacks a construct's mechanical weak point, dismembers undead, strikes a plant's roots, lacerates bizarre anatomy, or scoops out chunks of ooze. Multiple uses of this ability stack.

A rogue can never have spend more than half his class level in savvy points, rounded up, on this ability.

Finesse (Ex): When using a light weapon, rapier, or whip made for a creature of his size category, a rogue may use his Dexterity modifier instead of his Strength modifier on attack rolls. If he carries a shield, its armor check penalty applies to his attack rolls.

Trapfinding (Ex): Rogues can use the Search skill to locate traps when the task has a Difficulty Class higher than 20.

Finding a nonmagical trap has a DC of at least 20, or higher if it is well hidden. Finding a magic trap has a DC of 25 + the level of the spell used to create it.

Rogues can use the Disable Device skill to disarm magic traps. A magic trap generally has a DC of 25 + the level of the spell used to create it.

A rogue who beats a trap’s DC by 10 or more with a Disable Device check can study a trap, figure out how it works, and bypass it (with her party) without disarming it.

Combat Reflexes (Ex): At 2nd level, a rogue can make a number of extra attacks of opportunity equal to his Dexterity bonus.

Lightning Reflexes (Ex): At 2nd level, a rogue gains a +3 bonus to Reflex saves and Evasion. If he already has Evasion, this stacks to Improved Evasion.

At 6th level, the rogue may make a Balance Check in place of his Reflex save.

At 11th level, the rogue gains a +3 bonus to his Initiative.

At 16th level, when the rogue takes the Full Defense Action, add his level to his AC.

Blade Flick (Ex): At 3rd level, When using a weapon that Finesse applies to, a rogue adds his dexterity modifier to damage rolls.

Trap Sense (Ex): At 3rd level, a rogue gains an intuitive sense that alerts him to danger from traps, giving him an insight bonus equal to half his class level (rounded down) on saves against trap effects and to his AC against attacks made by traps.

Underground Contacts (Ex): At 3rd level, a rogue becomes known as a person who can find things. At the end of a Gather Information check, he can, as a standard action, mimic the effects of a single divination spell with caster level equal to his HD.

At 3rd level, this ability allows him to mimic the effects of Locate Object.

At 7th level, this ability allows him to mimic the effects of Locate Creature.

At 9th level, this ability allows him to mimic the effects of Contact Other Plane.

At 15th level, this ability allows him to mimic the effects of Discern Location.

Reflexive Combat (Ex): At 4th level, as an immediate action, a rogue can spend a point from his savvy pool to make a roll as if he were making a reflex save. He may use the result as his AC for a number of rounds equal to his Base Attack Bonus. If he does, he cannot use this ability again until the duration has expired.

While under this effect, the rogue's Touch AC becomes equal to his AC.

Uncanny Dodge (Ex): Starting at 4th level, a rogue can react to danger before her senses would normally allow her to do so. She retains her Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) even if she is caught flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, she still loses her Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized.

If a rogue already has uncanny dodge from a different class she automatically gains improved uncanny dodge instead.

Find An Opening (Ex): At 5th level, whenever someone makes an attack roll that doesn't beat a rogue's AC, they are denied their dexterity bonus to AC against the rogue until the beginning of their next turn.

Full Strip (Ex): At 5th level, the rogue can use pickpocketing any number of times as a standard action.

Shift (Ex): At 6th level, a rogue can move with superhuman alacrity. As an immediate action, by spending a point from his savvy pool, the rogue gains an extra move action that must be used immediately.

At 17th level, the rogue gains a standard action instead of a move action.

Double Jump (Ex): At 6th level, a rogue can use bits of fluff in the surrounding space as a platform for jumps. The rogue can make jump checks even if he is not standing on anything that could support his weight. The DC for the jump check is 20 + 1 per previous attempt this turn. Success means the rogue can jump a distance determined by the result of his check. Yes, this means he can cancel falling damage by jumping before he reaches the ground.

Cover Me (Ex): At 7th level, a rogue can use allies as cover. If he succeeds a hide check while using an ally as cover, he can stay hidden as long as the ally is visible or until he attacks. A rogue using this ability can have cover against and hide from one enemy even if another can see him.

Disguise Surroundings (Ex): At 8th level, a rogue becomes a master of disguises. At the end of a disguise check, he can, as a standard action, mimic the effects of a single illusion spell with caster level equal to his HD. Instead of a saving throw, observers must succeed on a spot check opposed by the rogue's disguise check to see through the illusion.

At 8th level, this ability allows him to mimic the effects of either Seeming or Mirage Arcana (chosen at the time the ability is used).

At 11th level, this ability allows him to mimic the effects of Veil.

At 15th level, this ability allows him to mimic the effects of Screen.

Divination effects that see through illusions, like True Seeing, are ineffective against this ability. Creatures do not resume their normal appearance when slain.

Improved Uncanny Dodge (Ex): A rogue of 8th level or higher can no longer be flanked.

This defense denies another rogue the ability to sneak attack the character by flanking her, unless the attacker has at least four more rogue levels than the target does.

If a character already has uncanny dodge from a second class, the character automatically gains improved uncanny dodge instead, and the levels from the classes that grant uncanny dodge stack to determine the minimum rogue level required to flank the character.

Gone Underground (Ex): At 9th level, a rogue can't be found if he doesn't want to be. He is continuously protected from all devices, powers, and spells that reveal location.

A rogue can voluntarily suppress this ability. Doing so is a standard action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity. Once a rogue suppresses the ability, it remains suppressed until the rogue's next turn. At the beginning of the rogue’s next turn, the protection automatically returns unless the rogue intentionally keeps it down (also a standard action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity).

The protection even foils bend reality, limited wish, miracle, reality revision, and wish when they are used to gain information about the rogue’s location. In the case of remote viewing or scrying that scans an area a rogue is in, the effect works, but the rogue simply isn't detected. Remote viewing or scrying attempts that are targeted specifically at the rogue do not work.

Out Of Sight (Ex): At 10th level, a rogue can hide from anything. By spending a point from his savvy pool as a free action, the rogue gains the benefits of the Darkstalker feat against enemies of 3 HD or less until the beginning of his next turn. Multiple uses of this ability in one turn add 3 to the HD of creatures the rogue can hide from per savvy point spent.

Ingrain Muscle Memory (Ex): At 11th level, a rogue can train his muscles to react even when his mind can't reach them. After 10 minutes of mental preparation, he can create a contingency. He chooses a single action that he can perform at the time of preparation (eg. use a skill, make an attack, activate a magic item), and sets the conditions for the contingency. He can use any of his rogue abilities that would normally be available as part of the chosen action (eg. hide and use Don't Blink). He can draw an object and use it as part of a contingency, but if he doesn't have the item on his person, or it takes longer than a move action to draw it, at the time the conditions are met, the chosen action is wasted. And he'll look pretty silly trying to get his dagger to cast Teleport.

The conditions needed to bring the contingency into effect must be clear, although they can be general. In all cases, the contingency immediately brings into effect the chosen action, the latter being done instantaneously when the prescribed circumstances occur, even if the rogue would normally be unable to accomplish the action (eg. from being stunned, cowering, or dead). If complicated or convoluted conditions are prescribed, the chosen action may fail when called on. The chosen action occurs based solely on the stated conditions, regardless of whether you want it to.

A contingency lasts for 1 day per level or until discharged. A rogue can only have one contingency created at a time.

Step Into Darkness (Ex): At 13th level, a rogue learns how to walk the paths of darkness. Whenever he succeeds a Hide check, he can mimic the effects of Shadow Walk with caster level equal to his HD. The saving throw DC for this ability is 10 + 1/2 the rogue's HD + his Cha modifier. This is not an action.

Shadow Revival (Ex): Shadow is not the opposite of light, merely it's absence. At 19th level, a rogue always comes back. If he is ever slain, his body dissolves within one round and begins reforming on the Plane of Shadow. The reforming takes 1d4 days to complete. In the meantime, the rogue's senses travel with an illusory double that acts like a Trickery Devotion duplicate that appears at the start of his next turn after his death in the place he died. He can continue using the duplicate until he dismisses it or it is destroyed. In either case, his senses return to his body after the duplicate is gone.

Two Places At Once (Ex): At 20th level, a rogue can always have the perfect alibi. As a standard action, he can spend a point from his savvy pool to mimic the effects of Body Outside Body with caster level equal to his character level. He can dismiss the duplicates as a free action.

Special Abilities
On attaining 10th level, and at every other level thereafter (12th, 14th, 16th, 18th, and 20th), a rogue gains a special ability of his choice from among the following options.

Don't Look For Me (Ex)
Whenever the rogue is targeted by a device, power, spell or other effect that reveals location, he immediately becomes aware of the attempt, and may choose to send the creature who originated the effect a nightmarish vision. They must succeed on a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the rogue's HD + his Cha modifier) to disbelieve the nightmare or die from fear.

Mind Blank (Sp)
The rogue is continuously protected by the Mind Blank spell.

Slip Behind (Ex)
Whenever someone makes an attack roll that doesn't beat the rogue's AC, they provoke an attack of opportunity from the rogue.

Stab Essence (Ex)
The rogue has learned how to attack the very essence of a person, resulting in wounds that cannot be healed normally. All damage dealt by a rogue is treated as though it were Vile damage for purposes of healing effects, and his attacks ignore damage reduction.

Monetize (Sp)
The rogue can steal souls for use as currency. He can use Soul Bind as a spell-like ability at will, with caster level equal to his HD and Will saving throw DC 10 + 1/2 the rogue's HD + his Cha modifier.

Crippling Strike (Ex)
A rogue with this ability can sneak attack opponents with such precision that her blows weaken and hamper them. An opponent damaged by one of her sneak attacks also takes 2 points of Strength damage. Ability points lost to damage return on their own at the rate of 1 point per day for each damaged ability.

Defensive Roll (Ex)
The rogue can roll with a potentially lethal blow to take less damage from it than she otherwise would. Once per day, when she would be reduced to 0 or fewer hit points by damage in combat (from a weapon or other blow, not a spell or special ability), the rogue can attempt to roll with the damage. To use this ability, the rogue must attempt a Reflex saving throw (DC = damage dealt). If the save succeeds, she takes only half damage from the blow; if it fails, she takes full damage. She must be aware of the attack and able to react to it in order to execute her defensive roll—if she is denied her Dexterity bonus to AC, she can’t use this ability. Since this effect would not normally allow a character to make a Reflex save for half damage, the rogue’s evasion ability does not apply to the defensive roll.

Improved Evasion (Ex)
This ability works like evasion, except that while the rogue still takes no damage on a successful Reflex saving throw against attacks henceforth she takes only half damage on a failed save. A helpless rogue does not gain the benefit of improved evasion.

Opportunist (Ex)
Once per round, the rogue can make an attack of opportunity against an opponent who has just been struck for damage in melee by another character. This attack counts as the rogue’s attack of opportunity for that round. Even a rogue with the Combat Reflexes feat can’t use the opportunist ability more than once per round.

Skill Mastery
The rogue becomes so certain in the use of certain skills that she can use them reliably even under adverse conditions.

Upon gaining this ability, she selects a number of skills equal to 3 + her Intelligence modifier. When making a skill check with one of these skills, she may take 10 even if stress and distractions would normally prevent her from doing so. A rogue may gain this special ability multiple times, selecting additional skills for it to apply to each time.

Feat
A rogue may gain a bonus feat in place of a special ability.


Scrapped Abilities, in case anyone's interested
Don't Blink (Ex): At 6th level, whenever someone makes an attack roll that doesn't beat a rogue's AC or the rogue succeeds on a reflex save, the rogue may spend a point from his savvy pool to teleport a short distance, as though he had used Dimension Hop with caster level equal to his HD.

Insight (Ex): As a free action, a rogue can spend a point from his savvy pool to add a +3 untyped bonus to the result of his next skill check. Multiple uses of this ability stack. If these savvy points are spent on a skill whose action is longer than 1 round, they do not return until the turn after the rogue has completed the action.

This ability can be used with the following skills: Appraise, Autohypnosis, Balance (except when used with Lightning Reflexes), Bluff*, Climb, Concentration*, Control Shape, Craft, Decipher Script, Disable Device, Escape Artist*, Gather Information, Handle Animal*, Heal, Jump, Knowledge, Open Lock, Psicraft*, Profession, Ride, Search, Sense Motive*, Sleight of Hand, Spellcraft*, Survival, Swim, Tumble*, Truespeak, Use Magic Device, Use Psionic Device, and Use Rope*.

*Except on opposed checks or checks with variable DC, eg. a Concentration check vs damage.

Alpha Don't Blink (Ex): At 6th level, whenever the rogue succeeds on a hide check, he may spend a point from his savvy pool to teleport a short distance, as though he had used Dimension Hop with caster level equal to his HD.

Slip Away (Ex): At 5th level, whenever someone makes an attack roll that doesn't beat the rogue's AC, the rogue can make a hide check. This is not an action.

Hide in Plain Sight (Ex): At 8th level, a rogue can use the Hide skill even while being observed.

Darkstalker (Ex): At 10th level, a rogue gains the benefits of the Darkstalker feat.

Steal Buildings (Ex): At 17th level, the rogue can steal anything. As a standard action, by spending a point from his savvy pool, the rogue can steal an object of up to 10000 cu. ft. per level and everything in it. Creatures in the area can attempt a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the rogue's HD + his Cha modifier) to resist the effect. To onlookers, the object appears to vanish. In actuality, the rogue stores it in a pocket of extradimensional space that follows him around, and functions for all effects like a portable hole. The weight of the object and its contents have no effect on the rogue's ability to steal them or his carrying capacity after he has done so. The rogue can withdraw the object anywhere there is enough space to do so as another standard action. A rogue can only use this ability on one object at a time.

Dextrous Will (Ex): At 6th level, a rogue can make a Reflex save in place of a Will save. He can not substitute a Balance check for this save.

change the 5th paragraph ("If you try to take something...") of the Sleight of Hand skill to the following:

Pickpocketing
If you try to take something from another creature, you must make a DC 20 Sleight of Hand check to obtain it. The item must be at least 2 sizes smaller than you. The opponent makes a Spot check to detect the attempt, opposed by the same Sleight of Hand check result you achieved when you tried to grab the item. Failing either the Sleight of Hand check or the opposed Spot check provokes an attack of opportunity by the person you're stealing from, and you are denied your dexterity bonus to AC against this attack, because your hands are in their pockets. Taking damage from this attack results in dropping the item.

Yora
2013-06-10, 07:39 AM
To make the rogue equal to a wizard, you clearly need 9th level spells.

Razanir
2013-06-10, 08:58 AM
1) Kudos on the Doctor Who reference
2) Either change the Souls are Cash and Dark Revival, or change the alignment to non-good. I can't imagine a good rogue (like Robin Hood) doing either
3) Being completely honest, this is Tier 3 AT BEST. You need magic to enter the top tiers. Contingency might be able to bump it up to Tier 2, but you aren't getting Tier 1 without 9th level spells.

Omnicrat
2013-06-10, 09:22 AM
Tiers are not based on power, but versatility. A level x warrior with good gear and an antimagic field centered on him would be able to easily beat level x wizards, that doesn't make him tier 1. If anything, it probably makes him tier 6, since he can under no circumstances use magic.

The only way to be tier 1 is to have equivilant effects to all spells at the appropriate level a wizard gets them, for example. It doesn't technically NEED to be magical, but have fun explaining non-magical wish effects or creating your own personal demiplanes.

Yitzi
2013-06-10, 09:46 AM
To make the rogue equal to a wizard, you clearly need 9th level spells.

Or equivalent.


Tiers are not based on power, but versatility.

This is true of the difference between tier 1 and 2, and between 3 and 4. It is not true of the difference between tiers 1/2, 3/4, 5, and 6.


A level x warrior with good gear and an antimagic field centered on him would be able to easily beat level x wizards

No, because they could evade him until the antimagic field runs out. A better analogy would be a class that has permanent immunity to hostile magic and enough ranged and magical-defense-bypassing capability to at least chase wizards away...and while that wouldn't be tier 1, it probably would implode the tier system if it were otherwise weak enough to lose to a tier 3-5.

Omnicrat
2013-06-10, 10:54 AM
This is true of the difference between tier 1 and 2, and between 3 and 4. It is not true of the difference between tiers 1/2, 3/4, 5, and 6.

How is it not? Capable of nothing is still a measure of versatility.


No, because they could evade him until the antimagic field runs out. A better analogy would be a class that has permanent immunity to hostile magic and enough ranged and magical-defense-bypassing capability to at least chase wizards away...and while that wouldn't be tier 1, it probably would implode the tier system if it were otherwise weak enough to lose to a tier 3-5.

No, I was saying he somehow had a permanent anti-magic field centered on him, maybe its a race or something.

Also, I said it would probably be tier 6, because it would loose any ability to use magic or have magic used for its benefit. It would be very bad at anything.

DMMike
2013-06-10, 12:07 PM
That said, there's one skill I'd like to change before I start, since I think it's both completely bonkers and closely tied with the rogue class: Sleight of Hand. The fact that a tiny-sized creature with +19 to Sleight of Hand can automatically steal a weapon larger than itself that their enemy is actually wielding at the time makes it absolutely silly, and would completely ruin any attempt at melee combat past level 7 or so if people played it by RAW. I don't think the basic idea of theft in combat is silly. It's actually pretty awesome and I like Final Fantasy games that allow that. But there need to be consequences past "I saw that!" So change the 5th paragraph ("If you try to take something...") of the Sleight of Hand skill to the following:


Let's call a spade a spade here. +19 Sleight of Hand is absolutely silly. Go ahead and let the Reduced Person halfling disarm anyone.

rockdeworld
2013-06-10, 08:02 PM
Let's call a spade a spade here. +19 Sleight of Hand is absolutely silly. Go ahead and let the Reduced Person halfling disarm anyone.
+19 equates to 10 ranks + 3 dex + 2 synergy + 2 deft hands + 2 masterwork item (or replace the last 2 with a +4 magic item for 1600gp, or +4 dex + 3 skill focus) and is absolutely feasible at level 7.

Edit: but thanks for replying to something I wrote after the first paragraph. I'm not sure anyone else actually read the OP. Except Razanir, mostly.

"Either change the Souls are Cash and Dark Revival, or change the alignment to non-good. I can't imagine a good rogue (like Robin Hood) doing either"
Soul Bind is necromancy but not evil, and using it on an evil person could presumably be a good thing. OTOH, I have no problem changing it if you can think of another good 17th level ability for the rogue, because honestly I can't. I added that ability to give the rogue free access into the Wish economy, but obviously not everyone uses that economy in their games so it's not necessary. But I can't think of any other problem this rogue can't solve at level 17.

For the other one, Dark =/= evil. If you can think of a better name, I'll use it.

Zweisteine
2013-06-10, 08:21 PM
Tiers are not based on power, but versatility. A level x warrior with good gear and an antimagic field centered on him would be able to easily beat level x wizards, that doesn't make him tier 1.

But the Wizard is wearing is wearing a person-sized tin cone under the effect of a permanent shrink item. He also has a contingent teleport set to activate upon being within the area of an antimagic field.



The only way to be tier 1 is to have equivilant effects to all spells at the appropriate level a wizard gets them, for example. It doesn't technically NEED to be magical, but have fun explaining non-magical wish effects or creating your own personal demiplanes.

This is very true.
To make a rogue tier 1, it would have to cease to be a rogue.

Details on tier system:
Found this on the internet:
Tier 6: A cartographer.
Tier 5: An expert cartographer or a decent marksman.
Tier 4: An expert marksman.
Tier 3: An expert marksman, cartographer and chef who can tie strong knots and is trained in hostage negotiation or a marksman so good he can shoot down every bullet fired by a minigun while armed with a rusted single-shot pistol that veers to the left.
Tier 2: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything, or the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.
Tier 1: Someone with teleportation, mind control, time manipulation, intangibility, the ability to turn into an exact duplicate of anything and the ability to see into the future with perfect accuracy.

More simply:
Tier 6: Average—Has some skill in one mundane area.
Tier 5: Skilled—Has some skill in an advanced skill, or has a lot of a mundane skill.
Tier 4: Trained—Has a lot of skill in an advanced skill.
Tier 3: General expert—Has a lot of skill in many advanced areas.
Tier 2: Master—Has mastered one skill, or maybe even two.
Tier 1: Batman—Has mastered everything.

Even simpler:
Tier 6: Commoner
Tier 5: Fighter
Tier 4: Rogue
Tier 3: Factotum
Tier 2: Sorcerer
Tier 1: Wizard

Read the intro of this (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293.msg176407#msg176407), the original and widely accepted tier system.


That said, I find this rather interesting.


Pssssstttt! Yeah, you! Letting the rogue steal the oversized weapon in combat makes it closer to tier 2!

rockdeworld
2013-06-10, 08:26 PM
To make a rogue tier 1, it would have to cease to be a rogue.
Even simpler:
Tier 6: Commoner
Tier 5: Fighter
Tier 4: Rogue
Tier 3: Factotum
Tier 2: Sorcerer
Tier 1: Wizard
There's a logical flaw in that argument: you've defined rogue as tier 4, but tier 4 is an observation, not definition of the rogue.

And this conversation is very far removed from actually discussing the rogue put forth in the OP. I ask that you either bring it back to the ground or move it to another thread.

Zweisteine
2013-06-10, 08:46 PM
Yeah, sorry about that... I was going to actually attempt to review it, but I got distracted by the tier discussion. I'll edit my review into here.

At my preliminary glance, I have a few suggestions.
1. Even if it follows the pattern of the basic rogue, you should include base attack bonus, saves, etc. into the table. It seems like a good idea to add a separate column (at the right) for savvy points.
2. Nonactions are not used for things that are done, as far as I know. The SRD describes nonactions as being part of other actions, not actions in and of themselves. As a matter of fact, the SRD uses the term "not an action," not once saying "nonaction." Activating abilities should always take at least a free action (a nonaction would be more like activating Power Attack: "when you do X, you may do Y aspart of X").
3. When you say "as the 3.5 rogue," you should actually repeat the rules text (copy/paste from SRD). That way, nobody has to do much checking, and it's easier to check overall.

And now I realize I didn't actually compliment this...

This does look pretty cool. I'm a bit too hurried to give much more detail, though... :smallredface:

rockdeworld
2013-06-10, 09:42 PM
Yeah, sorry about that... I was going to actually attempt to review it, but I got distracted by the tier discussion. I'll edit my review into here.
Thanks Zweisteine :smallsmile:

1. Done.
2. 3 of the nonactions are so listed because they're a part of another action (using a skill, rerolling a roll), and I've clarified that. Changed the last one.
3. Done.

Yitzi
2013-06-11, 12:30 AM
Also, I said it would probably be tier 6, because it would loose any ability to use magic or have magic used for its benefit. It would be very bad at anything.

It would be good at beating tier 1. If an otherwise tier 6 can beat an otherwise tier 1, I think that would essentially implode the tier system.

AuraTwilight
2013-06-11, 01:11 AM
Er...no? That's not how the Tier system works. :l

Hanuman
2013-06-11, 04:07 AM
I'm sure there's some side-bets going on how many times people can use Tier incorrectly before it's cited.

http://www.brilliantgameologists.com/boards/?topic=1002.0

http://www.modernmythmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/JL_JusticeLeague.jpg

This is essentially what you think it should look like then?

Because you can totally make a batman class.

Omnicrat
2013-06-11, 04:50 AM
If you want the tier arguments to stop, change the line at the top about this being tier 1 meaning it can compete with the wizard. That's not how tiers work.

The basics of 3.5 (skill system induced) are based around 5th level being the best anyone can possibly be in the real world. That someone focusing a lot on slight of hand can steal a sword someone was just trying to hit them with from their opponent is not ridiculous for being two whole levels beyond the best real human ever.

The complexity of this class is sort of counter to your fluff of "you just sort of pick it up as you go." Just my opinion, though.

You have the Rouge title through proficiencies twice.

Can deflection be used more than once on the same roll? Luck?

Can underground contact use all 4 of its bonuses at the end of a single gather information check, or does the rouge have to pick one?

Is don't blink actual teleportation or is it just a similar effect? Also, you said whenever twice in it.

Wait a second, you let a 7th level rouge survive a fall from orbit, but you thought the slight of hand rules were ridiculous? :smallconfused:

A 9th level ability that is more powerful that a wish? :smallconfused:

Does a rouges contingency stack with a contingency spell?

Again, is step into darkness magical or mundane?

So, a rouge has infinite soulbinds?

Again, infinite body outside body?

Alright, not tier 1, but definitely overpowered. VERY overpowered. I'm not totally sure what tier it should be, but since the rouge can't make a demiplane from his will, not tier 1. MAYBE tier 2, but regardless of any of that, it is way overpowered.

Zweisteine
2013-06-11, 05:42 AM
People, shush about the tiers now!!!

Yitzi
2013-06-11, 06:51 AM
Er...no? That's not how the Tier system works. :l

It's not how the tier system works because there is not in fact a class that loses to tier 5 but beats tier 1. If there were, then tier 1 would no longer be superior, so there would be no real tier system. It would be more like rock-paper-scissors.

rockdeworld
2013-06-11, 09:45 AM
Thanks for the reply Omnicrat. You raised some good points and I want to reply:
-If you want the tier arguments to stop, change the line at the top about this being tier 1 meaning it can compete with the wizard. That's not how tiers work.
That's exactly how tiers work. In theory, all the tier 1 classes can compete with each other without one significantly overpowering the other, and they can cooperate without one significantly overshadowing the other. The wizard is tier 1, and if another class can't solve the same problems as a wizard, it doesn't belong in the same tier. In JaronK's original post he said he made the tier system "To help homebrewers judge the power and balance of their new classes. Pick a Tier you think your class should be in, and when you've made your class compare it to the rest of the Tier."

-That someone focusing a lot on slight of hand can steal a sword someone was just trying to hit them with from their opponent is not ridiculous for being two whole levels beyond the best real human ever.
1. That's not even focusing on SoH, it could just be picking it up with a bunch of other skills and then buying a magic item to pump it a bit.
2. Of course it's not ridiculous that they can steal a sword from someone, unless it's bigger than they are. Yuffie never stole Cloud's BFS (arguably it wasn't worth that much), and no one imagined she could. I don't think anyone imagines it's actually possible for someone short of Superman to even fight with that sword. And it breaks the game when someone like Yuffie can totally do that. IMO, it's bad design to have a mechanic that automatically ends melee combats when half your classes are based around melee combat.

Granted I'm applying this just to small- creatures, and D&D 3.5 still runs perfectly fine as long as everyone uses medium+ size weapons. The rules change is so that those small or smaller creatures can use sleight of hand in a way that isn't broken, and so that large+ creatures can use it at all.

-You have the Rouge title through proficiencies twice.
Fixed, thanks.

-Can deflection be used more than once on the same roll? Luck?
Yes and yes.

-Can underground contact use all 4 of its bonuses at the end of a single gather information check, or does the rouge have to pick one?
You have to pick one, because they're all standard actions

-Is don't blink actual teleportation or is it just a similar effect? Also, you said whenever twice in it.
Fixed the whenever, thanks. It's a teleportation effect like it says it is.

-Wait a second, you let a 7th level rouge survive a fall from orbit, but you thought the slight of hand rules were ridiculous? :smallconfused:
Yes, I thought an ability that a 1st level wizard has wouldn't be broken on a 7th level rogue, but that an ability that breaks the game should be changed.

-A 9th level ability that is more powerful that a wish? :smallconfused:
Go read Nondetection and then come back if you still think this is overpowered. It's in fact modeled directly off the Ithillid Slayer's Cerebral Blind, a 10th level ability.

-Does a rouges contingency stack with a contingency spell?
Sure, why not.

-Again, is step into darkness magical or mundane?
Mundane, since it's an (Ex) ability. What do you mean again?

-So, a rouge has infinite soulbinds?
Yes. What is your point? Have you ever seen a game broken by Soul Bind? More to the point: have you ever seen Soul Bind used?

-Again, infinite body outside body?
Yes. It's level 20 and doesn't really matter.

Deepbluediver
2013-06-11, 10:23 AM
I don't have much experience with design, and welcome criticism for this. My two goals for this are:
1. to raise the rogue from tier 4 to tier 1 (in other words, give it the ability to compete with a wizard), and
2. to make every level an awesome level to be a rogue.

Let me give you some advice then: Tier 1 is not necessarily the best goal to aim for when homebrewing. A party full of optimized tier-1 classes can be difficult for the GM to plan encounters for, and every conflict very rapidly devolves into rocket-tag.

Also, the traditional classes that have tier-1 capability need not always be that powerful. You can make a wizard or cleric that plays like a lower tier class by relying on blasting and healing spells; whereas if you try to force a character to always act at the tier-1 limit, most people will be turned off by it's apparent OP-ness. If overall balance is your intent, then a combination of buffing lower classes and nerfing the OP ones tends to create an improved system.

Your second goal (to make a full run of the rogue desirable, instead of just as a dip) would be a better and more realistic option, IMO.


Tiers are not based on power, but versatility.
Reply spoilered to avoid thread derailment.
My understanding was that it was based on both. Tier 3 is the "good at one thing, decent at most" level, in other words the lowest reasonably versatile tier. The Tier 1's are better at EVERYTHING they try than the lower-tier classes, and can do ANYTHING at ANY time.
A tier 2 can be just as good as a tier 1 if given a specific task, but they lack the ability to change up on the fly. Tiers 4 and 3 share much the same relationship, at least as far as I understand it.


Edit: but thanks for replying to something I wrote after the first paragraph. I'm not sure anyone else actually read the OP. Except Razanir, mostly.

I'll try to do a more thorough evaluation later, when I finish reading everything and have had some time to process it. The savvy mechanic looks interesting, though regaining the points every round and seeing how high they stack....makes me a little trepidatious.


For the other one, Dark =/= evil. If you can think of a better name, I'll use it.

Shadow Revival is the only thing that springs to mind. If you need to fluff it, use my favorite line "Shadow is not the opposite of light, merely it's absence" which can be taken several different ways.

Given how much specialized vocabulary D&D tends to need, I often find thesaurus.com (http://thesaurus.com/) to be a very helpful tool.

Cidolfas
2013-06-11, 10:29 AM
This ability works as with the 3.5 rogue with one exception: creatures immune to critical hits or precision damage instead take half damage from a rogue's sneak attack.

Yay, this! Making SA less useless without having to abuse UMD is a big plus. Kudos to you, sir.

The Savvy Pool is a nice touch, although many of the published Tome classes don't have resource management systems of any kind. This may put them a teensy bit above this, but that shouldn't be considered a bad thing to me. As much as I like the Fighter and Barbarian, Foil Action (for the fighter) and the discriminating AMF cone (for the Barbarian) are particularly dicey given their unlimited usage. The Tome Samurai's Cut Magic can probably be thrown in there too, although not quite to the same extent. Anywho, I'm not good enough at mathematics to really be the judge on whether the number of Savvy points given is enough or not.

I am a little bit saddened by the number of class features that essentially replicate spells. There is nothing wrong with this strategy per se, but it gets kind of old for me after a while. That said, I totally understand why it is a viable strategy because I am sitting here trying to think of alternatives and can't come up with anything.

I think if you want to encourage rogues to take Combat feats and the like, assuming the use of Tome rules of course, you could use the Rogue Special Abilities to fold all of the feats that require the forgoing of Sneak Attack dice into the class itself. This gives you more content (and control over the interpretation of these abilities) and allows you to explicitly integrate Savvy points with these abilities. This could also be a chance to add rider effects like hamstringing an opponent or creating bleeding wounds to a Sneak Attack. More ways to use that other than just dealing damage would be a nice bonus.


Tiers are not based on power, but versatility. A level x warrior with good gear and an antimagic field centered on him would be able to easily beat level x wizards, that doesn't make him tier 1. If anything, it probably makes him tier 6, since he can under no circumstances use magic.

The only way to be tier 1 is to have equivilant effects to all spells at the appropriate level a wizard gets them, for example. It doesn't technically NEED to be magical, but have fun explaining non-magical wish effects or creating your own personal demiplanes.

AMF requires a minimum of an 11th level caster to put it on themselves, so I can only imagine it would be a similar level or higher in order to put it on a character that's not a caster. That said, given how AMF doesn't discriminate (unless you are the Tome Barbarian, of course) and only has a 10 foot radius, an equivalent level wizard can just move outside the radius and fly, proceeding to kite the warrior (who presumably lacks flight courtesy of being inside an antimagic field) until he dies. Unless the warrior goes all closet-troll on the wizard and gets up close and personal AND has a way to hold him down, the wizard can probably still win handily. Not to mention the fact that the warrior is incapable of producing the AMF of his own accord, so any victory he has will not be of his own doing, in effect preventing him from being a higher rank.



Can underground contact use all 4 of its bonuses at the end of a single gather information check, or does the rouge have to pick one?

Based on how I read it, the use of any of them is a standard action, so it's still only one per turn and per check.



Wait a second, you let a 7th level rouge survive a fall from orbit, but you thought the slight of hand rules were ridiculous? :smallconfused:

Feather fall lets you survive a fall from orbit at level 3, causing you to be OK in an extremely situational happenstance. Sleight of Hand breaks the D&D combat system, which is what about 90% of the rules are written to address. Also, "rogue" please (I'm a grammar Nazi, I can't help it).



Does a rouges contingency stack with a contingency spell?


As much as I shudder at the use of "rouge" again, this is a pretty important point.



So, a rouge has infinite soulbinds?

Again, infinite body outside body?

Alright, not tier 1, but definitely overpowered. VERY overpowered. I'm not totally sure what tier it should be, but since the rouge can't make a demiplane from his will, not tier 1. MAYBE tier 2, but regardless of any of that, it is way overpowered.

Overpowered is such a relative term that I don't even think it should apply here. At level 20, pretty much every Tier 1 class (I don't favor the Tier terminology especially given the arguments that have already transpired, but in this case it is kind of necessary to use) has equivalent power to a demi-god. Overpowered compared to a monk/samurai/healbot? Perhaps, given that those classes are absolutely god-awful in every sense. But this is something that is supposed to compete with the Tome Fighter/Barbarian, Wizard, and CoDzilla. So giving soul binds and body outside body at levels 17 and 20 is pretty much not that big of a deal as far as I am concerned.

Zelkon
2013-06-11, 04:18 PM
It's not how the tier system works because there is not in fact a class that loses to tier 5 but beats tier 1. If there were, then tier 1 would no longer be superior, so there would be no real tier system. It would be more like rock-paper-scissors.

Err...no. Tiers are defined by how they interact with the world, not other classes.

AuraTwilight
2013-06-11, 04:58 PM
It's not how the tier system works because there is not in fact a class that loses to tier 5 but beats tier 1. If there were, then tier 1 would no longer be superior, so there would be no real tier system. It would be more like rock-paper-scissors.

Tiers are defined by how they overcome obstacles, solve problems, and interact with the adventure placed before them, not how they fair in PvP. :/ This isn't Smash Bros Tiers.

Hanuman
2013-06-11, 05:11 PM
Tier 1: Capable of doing absolutely everything, often better than classes that specialize in that thing. Often capable of solving encounters with a single mechanical ability and little thought from the player. Has world changing powers at high levels. These guys, if played well, can break a campaign and can be very hard to challenge without extreme DM fiat, especially if Tier 3s and below are in the party.

Examples: Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Archivist, Artificer, Erudite


You guys can bicker about the semantics of what tiers mean for as long as you want, but that will never change what the OP actually meant.

K, so creating a mundane class that can compete with a wizard, that is to say superman can TURN BACK TIME, but batman has a solution for everything and can easily kill superman at any time due to his utility belt.

So, what makes a batman?

Actually this is probably closer to a factotum than rogue, but the deciding factor is resources, you pretty much want to be able to have a way better version of Shax's Haversack, as an advancement built into the class.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148101

Batman picked up the leadership feat because it's OP, and he has his butler as a follower. The computer systems in the newer games with the HUD would probably be better in this case, AA proved that batman can function very well as a detective theme focusing on intel and it's effectiveness.

Artificer might be a good take on this, being an inventor, possibly using a system similar to the Iron Man class that recently came out.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=258113


Any way you slice it, the rogue archetype, using anything even remotely similar to the rogue's mechanics are not going to be tier 1, and almost assured not tier 2 (but I'm not clever enough to call that for sure).

This means you're not going to have a tier1 rogue, it wouldn't be a rogue.

eftexar
2013-06-11, 05:26 PM
I really hate when people use the not PvP, or environment, argument. It's too flawed to even feasibly make a valid point with. A + B does not always = C. For example, I could just as easily make this statement:

Wizards and Fighters both fight the same monsters and need to make it past the same obstacles. Therefore they should be able to fight these monsters, and beat these obstacles, with the same level of success. Consequently balancing them to each other is the quickest, and most elegant, way to do this.
Whether or not my statement above is accurate, or not, is mostly irrelevant. It is just as accurate, or inaccurate, as the PvP argument. Because of the similarities, between them, disputing either also requires you to disagree with the other to maintain logical consistency.

Besides that I'm going to preempt arguments this point often brings up or leads to:

People also often fail to realize that each tier is a natural delineation of power and utility. Regardless of which tier you support they all follow certain structures and guidelines.
Exiting these norms results in either a great idea lauded for innovation or a bad idea shunned for unbalance; with the latter being more common among the two. And even innovative ideas tend to to follow this delineation.

A tier 5 class that beats a tier 1 more than even half of the time is definitely broken, because by it's very nature it would have to retain the utility of a tier 5 and exceed the power of tier 1 to do so. Otherwise it is no longer tier 5.
Even well-built tier 3 mage slayers, that specialize in fighting tier 1's, are more on even playing grounds than actually superior.

Now, I'm fully aware of the theory of balanced unbalance, which I unfortunately forget the actual name of.
It basically states if things are too balanced then a game is no longer fun because it feels like "more of the same", hence part of the reason why so many people disliked 4e and, to the contrary, LoL is so popular. But when other players feel useless this theory doesn't apply any longer.

Some of these misconceptions, and others, are often drawn, by some people, from the fact that they assume WotC had a certain point of balance in mind. It is much more likely they were concerned about representing the archetype, as presented in fantasy movies and novels, than actual balance.

Another point of misinterpretation is the assumption that players, or the DM, will play fair, or supply situations a character can contribute to, and that justifies gaps in power.
Game testing needs to either be tested in a 'vacuum,' without the predisposition of groups factoring in, or, as with scientific testing, throughout a variety of groups. Any assumption that claims a group, or DM, will always fit your standards is willful ignorance.

Omnicrat
2013-06-11, 06:59 PM
I'll come back and post more in-depthed when I'm more awake, but just to clarify a point: I was calling this class over powered due to the savvy pool and the deflection and luck abilities. Makes every hit, succeed every check, and never let them touch you.

Yitzi
2013-06-11, 08:39 PM
Err...no. Tiers are defined by how they interact with the world, not other classes.

The world is made up of people, who each have classes


Tiers are defined by how they overcome obstacles, solve problems, and interact with the adventure placed before them, not how they fair in PvP. :/ This isn't Smash Bros Tiers.

And if your party is all tier 1s and a good anticaster class exists, a smart enemy Big Bad will send anticasters against you. That's an obstacle and a problem that wizards can't handle, but fighters can.

AuraTwilight
2013-06-11, 09:47 PM
And if your party is all tier 1s and a good anticaster class exists, a smart enemy Big Bad will send anticasters against you. That's an obstacle and a problem that wizards can't handle, but fighters can.

Invoke Magic. Can we move on and get back on topic?

Yitzi
2013-06-11, 10:52 PM
Ok...tier 1 requires both high versatility (up to and including the ability to shut down abilities explicitly designed to counter it, e.g. using Invoke Magic to handle antimagic, plus the ability to swap out options on a relatively short notice) and high power (i.e. the ability to do other classes' stuff as well as they do if not better and have abilities that are close to irresistible by most if not all enemies.)

Now, I'm not so sure that the rogue archetype can't do that; if any nonmagical class can pull it off, it'll be something in the general area of the rogue. But it'll take a lot more than what you have here.

Some things that might help if you want to actually make the rogue tier 1:
-Flexible skill points. A wizard is tier 1 rather than 2 because he can change his spells each day; the tier 1 rogue can move around his skill points with a similarly low effort.
-Ways to abuse skills. Diplomacy and Bluff already have substantial potential in this area, but could probably be given more stuff (or even large numerical bonuses to help that way). Hide might help too, if you give him an unconditional Hide in Plain Sight and enough bonus to avoid even spot-based summons (and of course immunity to blindsight, blindsense, and all magical means of detection.)
-Some way to imitate everything a wizard or cleric can do. A nice large boost to UMD could help here, particularly if combined with a stronger version of the Pathfinder Chronicler's Deep Pockets ability.

Omnicrat
2013-06-12, 08:19 AM
Some things that might help if you want to actually make the rogue tier 1:
-Flexible skill points. A wizard is tier 1 rather than 2 because he can change his spells each day; the tier 1 rogue can move around his skill points with a similarly low effort.
-Ways to abuse skills. Diplomacy and Bluff already have substantial potential in this area, but could probably be given more stuff (or even large numerical bonuses to help that way). Hide might help too, if you give him an unconditional Hide in Plain Sight and enough bonus to avoid even spot-based summons (and of course immunity to blindsight, blindsense, and all magical means of detection.)
-Some way to imitate everything a wizard or cleric can do. A nice large boost to UMD could help here, particularly if combined with a stronger version of the Pathfinder Chronicler's Deep Pockets ability.

Another suggestion if you want to build it this way would be creating some mechanics for what can be done with souls yourself. As in, anyone can do these things if they have access to souls, like soul-splicing (that's what it was called, right?) from OotS with your powerful souls, burning the lesser ones up as fuel for spell effects, stuff like that.


Thanks for the reply Omnicrat. You raised some good points and I want to reply:
-If you want the tier arguments to stop, change the line at the top about this being tier 1 meaning it can compete with the wizard. That's not how tiers work.
That's exactly how tiers work. In theory, all the tier 1 classes can compete with each other without one significantly overpowering the other, and they can cooperate without one significantly overshadowing the other. The wizard is tier 1, and if another class can't solve the same problems as a wizard, it doesn't belong in the same tier. In JaronK's original post he said he made the tier system "To help homebrewers judge the power and balance of their new classes. Pick a Tier you think your class should be in, and when you've made your class compare it to the rest of the Tier."

That's one way of interpreting the tier system, but a large part of it is versatility. This rogue can do a lot, but it can't create a demiplane. It can't use true resurrection on the king. It can't create a hero's feats or summon allies. If you just take out the part about tier 1 you'll be fine.


-That someone focusing a lot on slight of hand can steal a sword someone was just trying to hit them with from their opponent is not ridiculous for being two whole levels beyond the best real human ever.
1. That's not even focusing on SoH, it could just be picking it up with a bunch of other skills and then buying a magic item to pump it a bit.
2. Of course it's not ridiculous that they can steal a sword from someone, unless it's bigger than they are. Yuffie never stole Cloud's BFS (arguably it wasn't worth that much), and no one imagined she could. I don't think anyone imagines it's actually possible for someone short of Superman to even fight with that sword. And it breaks the game when someone like Yuffie can totally do that. IMO, it's bad design to have a mechanic that automatically ends melee combats when half your classes are based around melee combat.

Granted I'm applying this just to small- creatures, and D&D 3.5 still runs perfectly fine as long as everyone uses medium+ size weapons. The rules change is so that those small or smaller creatures can use sleight of hand in a way that isn't broken, and so that large+ creatures can use it at all.

You are trying to make a tier 1 class and you took away a non-sensical and overpowered ability. Not exactly the right direction for tier 1. :smalltongue: Joking aside, the rouge with a generic disarm effect is better than a rogue without it. Perhaps fluff it that the weapon is no longer in anyone's possession?


-Can deflection be used more than once on the same roll? Luck?
Yes and yes.

So, a high level rogue with anything better than the worst luck ever should always roll 20s and his opponents should always roll 1s?

-Is don't blink actual teleportation or is it just a similar effect? Also, you said whenever twice in it.
Fixed the whenever, thanks. It's a teleportation effect like it says it is.[/QUOTE]

I feel like this would be better if you made it not actual teleportation somehow. Burst of speed or something. That's just me, though.


-Wait a second, you let a 7th level rouge survive a fall from orbit, but you thought the slight of hand rules were ridiculous? :smallconfused:
Yes, I thought an ability that a 1st level wizard has wouldn't be broken on a 7th level rogue, but that an ability that breaks the game should be changed.

Eh, not quite the same as featherfall, and this is better, but I guess its not too much better.

-A 9th level ability that is more powerful that a wish? :smallconfused:
Go read Nondetection and then come back if you still think this is overpowered. It's in fact modeled directly off the Ithillid Slayer's Cerebral Blind, a 10th level ability.[/QUOTE]

I don't no why you told me to read nondetection, because this is SUBSTANTIALLY more powerful than that. Also, its implied that an illithid slayer has at least one level in a manifesting class, none of which get you to +4 bab at level 4 unless I am forgetting something. Just a small comment against that balance. Still, its as part of a very focused prestige class, it has a power that it specifically says works against it, and one must be psionically focused for it to work. With your ability: it is part of a very broad class that can do almost anything with its savvy pool, seems to be defeated by nothing whatsoever, and is always active no matter what. Just because an ability is balanced at a certain level in another class (especially if its a prestige class) doesn't mean its balanced around that level in every possible class. Especially not when its made better.


-Again, is step into darkness magical or mundane?
Mundane, since it's an (Ex) ability. What do you mean again?

Don't blink... which I just noticed is also (Ex)... so forget about my earlier complaint.


-So, a rouge has infinite soulbinds?
Yes. What is your point? Have you ever seen a game broken by Soul Bind? More to the point: have you ever seen Soul Bind used?

No, just checking. But, if you are going to use it, this could get out of hand fast. Spend a whole day collecting the souls of commoners...


-Again, infinite body outside body?
Yes. It's level 20 and doesn't really matter.

Again, just checking. However, saying ballance attempts do not matter at level 20 is folly. If that were true, why not make the capstone immortality and spellcasting of a 20th level wizard and cleric?

Yakk
2013-06-12, 09:43 AM
Savvy Pool: Reword how it "eats" sneak attack dice. "A Rogue who gains Sneak Attack dice from another class can exchange these dice for 2 Savvy points each".

Finesse/Sneak attack/Blade Flick:

I'd reduce sneak attack damage another notch, then add in some flat damage bonus dice to apply to all dex-based weapon attacks (say, level/4 or level/3 d6s) that is *not* precision damage.

Sneak Attack remains precision damage, and creatures immune to it ignore it, and maybe even costs more savvy points.

Lightning Reflexes: Boring numerical bonus

Reflexive Combat: Outside of extreme optimization, how often will your Reflex save bonus exceed your AC bonus?

Don't Blink: Why not simply allow the Rogue to move in a way that doesn't provoke OAs, instead of teleport? It is almost as good, and doesn't require teleportation.

That kind of ability -- the ability to move out of turn -- matches the Rogue archtype, and is extremely powerful. If you can, for example, move after a spell has been cast but before it takes effect, without the spell "automatically following you" you can nullify a whole set of effects (like force cage or fire ball or solid cloud) completely.

And it doesn't require teleporting. Just moving out of turn.

Disguise Surroundings: "Divination effects that see through illusions are also effective against this ability." I don't see why you included this clause.

I'd force a skill check. Magic that ignores illusions won't work against something that isn't actually an illusion.

Out Of Sight (Ex): Abilities shouldn't use CR. CR is a DM tool to judge how hard encounters are, not an in-game-universe detectable fact about a creature.

Will save is obsereable. Hit dice are observable. CR isn't, or shouldn't be.

Ingrain Muscle Memory: I'd be tempted to steal from Burning Wheel rather than the Contingency spell. Burning Wheel has reflexes, which are much like contingencies. Capping them at 1 is overkill, as is waiting for level 11. A slight difference is that GMs can "tag" reflexes and have them go off at inopportune moments -- the player can suppress the reflex, or have it go off and gain a benefit in terms of some resource that is hard to get otherwise.

Souls are Cash: Strange power. And costly, being 1000 gp per HD of the bound creature. Also, sort of tangental to the Rogue archtype.

Abilities like this being available to the rogue sound like a good idea, but making them core abilities is questionable. If you had a pool of abilities that the Rogue could pick between, and this being one of them, I'd say "yum".

The Rogue might automatically gain one ability each level, and might be limited in which ones are "ready" at any one time, and might be able to learn more of them without bound.

rockdeworld
2013-06-12, 10:05 AM
Multiquoting now with color!

Deepbluediver: Shadow Revival is the only thing that springs to mind. If you need to fluff it, use my favorite line "Shadow is not the opposite of light, merely it's absence" which can be taken several different ways.

Changed, thanks for the suggestion.

Cidolfas: I am a little bit saddened by the number of class features that essentially replicate spells.

Me too in fact, but the thing about spells is that if you name any given ability or effect, there's probably a spell that does it, and coming up with ways for a rogue to solve a problem is indeed easier by giving him at-will access to level-appropriate spells.

I think if you want to encourage rogues to take Combat feats and the like...

I don't really care about that. It's true this rogue is more combat-oriented (in the sense that it has a high ratio of stabbing/non-stabbing abilities), but that doesn't mean I think every rogue should be solely combat-focused. I do like your suggestions about Special Abilities though, and those might be something worth investigating. I probably won't do them though.

[about Underground Contacts] The use of any of them is a standard action, so it's still only one per turn and per check.

Thanks for confirming I'm not the only one who reads UC that way. It's obviously hard for me to know if I typed it out correctly since I know what I'm talking about.

[about contingency stacking] As much as I shudder at the use of "rouge" again, this is a pretty important point.

Yes those contingencies stack. I don't see a problem, since the quickest way you can pull this off is multiclassing rogue 11/spellcaster 1 and using a magic item of contingency to create a contingency with one of your level 0/1 spells.

Omnicrat: Perhaps fluff it that the weapon is no longer in anyone's possession?

Why? It's cool that a rogue can steal a sword right out of the fighter's hands if he rolls well enough, and my goal isn't to take coolness out of D&D.

So, a high level rogue with anything better than the worst luck ever should always roll 20s and his opponents should always roll 1s?

I'm currently running the Same Game Test on this rogue, and up to level 10 that statement isn't anything close to true. I can let you know the rest of the results when I finish it.

I feel like this would be better if you made it not actual teleportation somehow. Burst of speed or something. That's just me, though.

I personally think it's cool for a rogue to literally be able to disappear into thin air, and it solves the problem of fighting anything that can say "forcecage."

I don't no why you told me to read nondetection, because this is SUBSTANTIALLY more powerful than that.

Because they both stop Wish, which was your point. In the rest of your paragraph you talk about balance, but don't provide any actual examples of this ability unbalancing the game, so let me provide a counter-example: a 5th level cleric with DMM:Persistent spell (which I have made before, it can be done easily) can cast Persistent Nondetection every day at level 5. At level 9 that means it's using up neither of his top 2 levels of spell slots, even if it is using up his one persistent spell of the day. The rogue gets it for free 4 levels later because he doesn't get those 2 levels of spells, and he really doesn't want to be murdered by an angry wizard when he's asleep.

...if you are going to use [Souls Are Cash], this could get out of hand fast. Spend a whole day collecting the souls of commoners...

That's an example evil act that a high-level rogue should totally be able to do. An example good act would be imprisoning the soul of an evil necromancer you just defeated so he doesn't come back again to wreak havoc on the living.

...saying ballance attempts do not matter at level 20 is folly. If that were true, why not make the capstone immortality and spellcasting of a 20th level wizard and cleric?

I could have just as easily written "at this level, the rogue wins D&D." But that ability was a holdover from a previous version that someone said should be moved to level 20, so I did. Can you explain how this is a folly and why it should be changed? Because the answer "because it breaks D&D for a 20th level character to have [x]" where [x] is any ability you can think of, doesn't work. Most campaigns don't go to level 20, especially if they start at level 1, and most PCs in 3.x PrC out of their classes before that level.

Also, I didn't comment on this before but it's a worthwhile comment:
The complexity of this class is sort of counter to your fluff of "you just sort of pick it up as you go."

The rogue picks up savviness as he goes. Savviness is an innate feeling or knowledge for how to get what you need. The solution doesn't need to be simple, it just needs to be possible, and a high-level rogue (read: level 6) doesn't even need that. The class is complex because the rogue is complex, and wants to be that way. When you think "simple and straightforward" do you think of a rogue, or do you start thinking of something more like a barbarian?

Yakk: Savvy Pool: Reword how it "eats" sneak attack dice. "A Rogue who gains Sneak Attack dice from another class can exchange these dice for 2 Savvy points each".

Changed.

I'd reduce sneak attack damage another notch, then add in some flat damage bonus dice to apply to all dex-based weapon attacks (say, level/4 or level/3 d6s) that is *not* precision damage.

Probably because I'm tired I don't understand. Can you spell it out for me, and also why this change is better than 1/2 damage against normally immune creatures?

Lightning Reflexes: Boring numerical bonus

Check again, it's not.

It was. Copy and paste editing destroyed what I had written there for the benefit of the non-Tome audience, and I've put it back in. Check it again.

Reflexive Combat: Outside of extreme optimization, how often will your Reflex save bonus exceed your AC bonus?

On average: all the time. Especially after you hit level 6.

Don't Blink: Why not simply allow the Rogue to move in a way that doesn't provoke OAs, instead of teleport? It is almost as good, and doesn't require teleportation.

I touched on this above: to escape forcecages. Moving out of turn doesn't allow you to escape a forcecage, because forcecage doesn't use an attack roll. And teleporting is cool.

Disguise Surroundings: "Divination effects that see through illusions are also effective against this ability." I don't see why you included this clause.

It's an (Ex) ability, so I thought it might cause confusion.

I'd force a skill check. Magic that ignores illusions won't work against something that isn't actually an illusion.

I tried that, but it got thrown out because even if you do Spot vs Hide, not everyone advances Spot, but everyone advances Will saves.

Will save is obsereable. Hit dice are observable. CR isn't, or shouldn't be.

I wrote the ability this way so that CR doesn't need to be observable; the DM is the only one who knows if the ability works or not. And some abilities should use CR, like knowledge checks. This is another one, and it uses CR just because that's a simple way to make it harder to use against stronger opponents without dealing with the insanity of having to spend 10 sp against a level 20 wizard but ~22 sp against an equal-CR Tarrasque. Arguably that's not a bad thing, but this way smoothes out the usage for each level and makes it easier to playtest and balance.

Ingrain Muscle Memory: I'd be tempted to steal from Burning Wheel rather than the Contingency spell. Burning Wheel has reflexes, which are much like contingencies. Capping them at 1 is overkill, as is waiting for level 11.

Where can I see this Burning Wheel? Also I chose level 11 because that's when the wizard gets Contingency, and capped it at 1 because a previous reviewer told me to.

Souls are Cash: Strange power. And costly, being 1000 gp per HD of the bound creature. Also, sort of tangental to the Rogue archtype. Abilities like this being available to the rogue sound like a good idea, but making them core abilities is questionable. If you had a pool of abilities that the Rogue could pick between, and this being one of them, I'd say "yum".

You're right on every count. As I said before, it solves a problem for the rogue that doesn't exist outside of a game with Wish Economy. I've changed it to an SLA and moved it to Special Abilities. In its place I put back an edited version of an older ability: steal buildings. I'm interested in your thoughts on it.

The Rogue might automatically gain one ability each level, and might be limited in which ones are "ready" at any one time, and might be able to learn more of them without bound.

Which ones specifically, and how would this be better?

Decatus
2013-06-12, 10:40 AM
I don't have a ton of time to critique the whole thing, but I have to say that I really like this class. It really gets the across the feeling of, "Yeah, I can do that." that a rogue should have. Honestly, this is the kind of Rogue that I'd love to play in a game. Thanks for making this, Rock.

rockdeworld
2013-06-12, 11:14 AM
I don't have a ton of time to critique the whole thing, but I have to say that I really like this class. It really gets the across the feeling of, "Yeah, I can do that." that a rogue should have. Honestly, this is the kind of Rogue that I'd love to play in a game. Thanks for making this, Rock.
Thanks! :smallsmile: I'm glad you like it. If you use it in a game, please let me know how it does.

Yakk
2013-06-12, 01:54 PM
I'd reduce sneak attack damage another notch, then add in some flat damage bonus dice to apply to all dex-based weapon attacks (say, level/4 or level/3 d6s) that is *not* precision damage.
Probably because I'm tired I don't understand. Can you spell it out for me, and also why this change is better than 1/2 damage against normally immune creatures?
It is about the same.

Weapon Finess: When using (FINESS GROUP), you may substitute Str for Dex on attack rolls. When making an attack roll using Dex, you deal an extra 1d6 damage on a hit, +1d6 for every 4 max Savvy points.

Sneak Attack: You can spend 2 Savvy points to add +1d6 sneak attack until your next turn.


Reflexive Combat: Outside of extreme optimization, how often will your Reflex save bonus exceed your AC bonus?

On average: all the time. Especially after you hit level 6.
Really? It is really, really easy to get lots of +AC. Reflex seems harder. You get +2 + level/2 "for free" from Reflex... but there are lots of stacking bonuses to AC:

Armor bonus
Ring of Protection
Armor Enhancement
Shield Enhancement

and fewer stacking bonuses to Reflex.


Don't Blink: Why not simply allow the Rogue to move in a way that doesn't provoke OAs, instead of teleport? It is almost as good, and doesn't require teleportation.

I touched on this above: to escape forcecages. Moving out of turn doesn't allow you to escape a forcecage, because forcecage doesn't use an attack roll. And teleporting is cool.
Moving out of turn can allow you to escape a forcecage, if you can move out of turn whenever someone casts a spell where you are in the area of effect, before the effect goes off.

A wizard could get around this by casting 6 walls of force while you are floating in the air (and thus you aren't technically in the area of effect of any of them), and other such, but it really nullifies many non-targetted effects.

And does so without teleporting.


Disguise Surroundings: "Divination effects that see through illusions are also effective against this ability." I don't see why you included this clause.

It's an (Ex) ability, so I thought it might cause confusion.

I'd force a skill check. Magic that ignores illusions won't work against something that isn't actually an illusion.

I tried that, but it got thrown out because even if you do Spot vs Hide, not everyone advances Spot, but everyone advances Will saves.
Sure. Which would make the ability better in an appropriate way, because you require skills to counter it, not just magic or will.


Will save is obsereable. Hit dice are observable. CR isn't, or shouldn't be.

I wrote the ability this way so that CR doesn't need to be observable; the DM is the only one who knows if the ability works or not.
And from that, I could work out the CR of a given creature in the game.

And some abilities should use CR, like knowledge checks.
That would be someone's houserules. Paizos I think? Paizo's houserules often suck.

This is another one, and it uses CR just because that's a simple way to make it harder to use against stronger opponents without dealing with the insanity of having to spend 10 sp against a level 20 wizard but ~22 sp against an equal-CR Tarrasque. Arguably that's not a bad thing, but this way smoothes out the usage for each level and makes it easier to playtest and balance.
Yes, quite possibly some worthy foes will be much easier to use abilities on than others.


Ingrain Muscle Memory: I'd be tempted to steal from Burning Wheel rather than the Contingency spell. Burning Wheel has reflexes, which are much like contingencies. Capping them at 1 is overkill, as is waiting for level 11.

Where can I see this Burning Wheel? Also I chose level 11 because that's when the wizard gets Contingency, and capped it at 1 because a previous reviewer told me to.
Burning Wheel is an RPG:
http://www.burningwheel.org/
in which characters can all have "contingency" clauses, like "has his sword drawn when there is danger". Which means that the player can assert this happens instinctively "out of turn" when the trigger condition happens, like a contingency.

However, the DM can also "tag" these instincts (you are at a ball, and someone drops something). You can either suppress your instinct, or go with it (and receive a mechanical bonus for going with it).

The Rogue might automatically gain one ability each level, and might be limited in which ones are "ready" at any one time, and might be able to learn more of them without bound.
Which ones specifically, and how would this be better?
Any number of abilities?

Suppose you took nearly every ability, and renamed them to Rogue's Tricks. Gave them a level. Said you auto-learn a Trick every level. And you can have "prepared" one Trick of each level. And you can learn additional tricks from other Rogues or find them written down (gold price can be set).

Changing which Trick is prepared might take as little as full round action (long enough not to be able to do it in combat).

Now your Rogue can collect Tricks like a Wizard collects spells.

Yitzi
2013-06-12, 08:28 PM
A wizard could get around this by casting 6 walls of force while you are floating in the air (and thus you aren't technically in the area of effect of any of them), and other such, but it really nullifies many non-targetted effects.

Why limit it to being technically in the area of effect? If we're going for a high-power rogue, why not just give him something like one free standard action per 2 levels per day, which can be used to interrupt someone else's action as if it were readied? Call it "Expert Reflexes" or the like.

Hanuman
2013-06-13, 01:22 AM
Why limit it to being technically in the area of effect? If we're going for a high-power rogue, why not just give him something like one free standard action per 2 levels per day, which can be used to interrupt someone else's action as if it were readied? Call it "Expert Reflexes" or the like.
Oooo I like this, does anyone remember Guild Wars skills?
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Main_Page

Basically if your skill involved an attack and it was like 1/4s cast time it'd reset your skill animation, this was used for interrupts, which essentially popped any skill being used if the attack landed while they were casting it.
Some interrupts targeted only spells, some only targeted skills (spells were a type of "skill"), and some targeted actions (skills and attacks were types of actions).

So why not have the rogue have an ability, similar to monk's stunning fist usages, which disables a single action as it's being used.

This could be accomplished by placing the rogue's initiative in last place as a result of the immediate action, allowing the rogue to "act early" in a sense.

Yitzi
2013-06-13, 06:42 AM
So why not have the rogue have an ability, similar to monk's stunning fist usages, which disables a single action as it's being used.


Disabling the action while it's being used might be too much if it even affects attacks and movement; simply having it take place, plus maybe a bonus to the concentration check DC if it requires a concentration check, should be enough, as that'll stop spells and skills (assuming the ability to hit past defensive spells, which it needs anyway to be tier 1).

Yakk
2013-06-13, 08:45 AM
Why limit it to being technically in the area of effect? If we're going for a high-power rogue, why not just give him something like one free standard action per 2 levels per day, which can be used to interrupt someone else's action as if it were readied? Call it "Expert Reflexes" or the like.
I thought you said a high power rogue?

One free standard action per round. And maybe 2 free move actions per round by level 20.

Utterly "mundane" (you just move *really fast*), and extremely powerful. Completely within the concept of "something a rogue could do", and not at all magical, just extraordinary.

When aiming for a high power character, don't think "X per day", think "does this need to be limited?"

Yitzi
2013-06-13, 10:43 AM
I thought you said a high power rogue?

One free standard action per round. And maybe 2 free move actions per round by level 20.

The ability to break the action economy and interrupt actions is plenty powerful even if restricted in uses/day. A wizard can only cast his top-level spells a few times per day, but he's still tier 1.

Yakk
2013-06-13, 01:28 PM
Sure, but the wizard can break the action economy far more times than that. Every quickened spell, and a wizard can (in theory) quicken every level 1 through 5 spell.

My point is if you want more power and flexibility, instead of shoving pseudo-spell effects into the Rogue, grant the Rogue exceptions to the rules that are completely different than a Wizard's spells.

High level exceptions can and should be so good that a Wizard would give their eyeteeth for them, but the Wizard cannot afford to, because the Wizard has to spend 20 levels upping her caster level.

Having Ex that can only be countered by skills instead of by saves: a great way for a Rogue to have something that a non-Rogue would envy.

Having Ex abilities that completely change the game's action economy: another great way.

Being able to cast large area of effect illusion spells as (Ex) standard actions: not so great a way.

Yitzi
2013-06-13, 09:43 PM
Sure, but the wizard can break the action economy far more times than that. Every quickened spell, and a wizard can (in theory) quicken every level 1 through 5 spell.

No, he can only do it as long as he has the spell slots to burn. Which, if he wants to be using stuff anywhere remotely near his power level, is going to be a lot less than 1 time per day every 2 levels.


Having Ex that can only be countered by skills instead of by saves: a great way for a Rogue to have something that a non-Rogue would envy.

I think those already exist. They're known as the hide and bluff (and to a lesser extent, diplomacy) skills.

ArkenBrony
2013-06-13, 10:02 PM
No, he can only do it as long as he has the spell slots to burn. Which, if he wants to be using stuff anywhere remotely near his power level, is going to be a lot less than 1 time per day every 2 levels.

and that is what makes wizards limited, is how long they can be gods, while a rogue can never be a god.


I think those already exist. They're known as the hide and bluff (and to a lesser extent, diplomacy) skills.

true sight counters hide, zone of truth counters bluff, charm person replaces diplomacy, and invisibility replaces hide. nothing replaces or counters the extra actions, short of epic level metamagic, and a few spells i can't name off the top of my head

Yitzi
2013-06-13, 11:17 PM
and that is what makes wizards limited, is how long they can be gods, while a rogue can never be a god.

Be that as it may, in terms of the action economy my proposal would give the rogue the equivalent or better of the wizard. Clearly there's a lot more work to be done if the rogue is to be the equal of the wizard; my proposal was just to help one aspect.


true sight counters hide

False. It is explicit in the spell description that "True seeing does not help the viewer see through mundane disguises, spot creatures who are simply hiding, or notice secret doors hidden by mundane means."


zone of truth counters bluff

Depends how clever you are at saying things that are misleading but technically true. It makes it harder, but bluff can still be useful in a zone of truth. It's also a spell not available to everyone, and it only takes one person who doesn't have it (or doesn't think to use it in this instance) who can do what you want him to do.


charm person replaces diplomacy

Unless you want to make the target helpful (charm person only achieves "friendly"), or want to use it where charm person is illegal (most civilized areas, I would presume), or want the person to not be mad at you the next day...


and invisibility replaces hide

Below level 9 spells, invisibility is countered by True Seeing, See Invisibility, and Invisibility Purge. You lose it when attacking, unless using the 1 round/level version, which is fairly short for a hide-and-go-seek fight. Superior Invisibility negates most of those downsides, but is still countered by True Seeing, and I see no reason that Hide can't be made (for rogues only) even better than it is.


nothing replaces or counters the extra actions, short of epic level metamagic, and a few spells i can't name off the top of my head

So if nothing replaces or counters them, why does the rogue need more than 1/2 levels/day?

eftexar
2013-06-13, 11:41 PM
While True Seeing can certainly see through darkness there are plenty of ways of circumventing that or hiding under different conditions. Many include not just classes, but feats as well.
Zone of Truth specifically states you can be evasive. If you can't work you're way around it you shouldn't be putting ranks in bluff or, less likely, maybe the DM shouldn't be using it.
Diplomacy affects creatures immune to mind affects and doesn't have a limited duration. I've heard more people complain it is broken than the charm spells.
Invisibility is so easy to negate, or bypass, it's largely irrelevant in the scheme of things. Any spellcaster who has access to See Invisibility and doesn't take it obviously doesn't know what they are doing. Likewise a large number of monsters see through it, have items given to them by the DM to do so, or have area of effect abilities that make it irrelevant.


Although I certainly think these abilities are being overestimated, I also think it is true that there should be better ways to circumvent them for mundanes.
'Casting' spells as extraordinary abilities is usually out of place. I would even let things like stomping to make an Earthquake, or clapping hands to mimic Shout, pass, but there isn't even any flavor reasons to support it here.
For example there are plenty of ways to solve things without magic that isn't magic or at least cleverly hides it:

Being able to kick up a dust cloud allows instant concealment and denies true seeing. You might even create a more advanced version that instead provides total cover since that's harder to negate.
Zone of truth can be solved with an ability that "negates effects and bonuses, from magic, to aid in discerning lies." Maybe tagged with the ability to create false positives to screw with Paladins.
Charm, on the other hand, could be easily explained as non-magical (though it should probably have a less broken duration). There is enough precedent and in the world of D&D isn't a very far stretch.
Invisibility can be matched with feats, though they should probably be class options instead, to ignore not just detection through darkness, but through other forms of sensory abilities.
As far as the illusions go I honestly think they should just be labeled Sp/Su or there could be wile coyote style canvas that can be set up with a couple rounds work while not under observation. Better yet let's add alchemy and let them craft hallucinogens.
I'm fine with immunities being extraordinary even if they sound magical in nature. But that's because of game balance issues than anything. Otherwise it gets tricky with antimagic.
Some abilities, such as steal buildings, are ludicrous even by the high standards of spells. And abilities like Shadow Revival need to have the Su tag so they can be countered easier.


The class is still probably tier 3 despite system abuses. The large number of abilities you start with is astounding and then it staggers off to a state where the number of abilities waned. I'm all for having two or three abilities in the first level, but it gets ridiculous when 14 abilities are offered by level 5.

Honestly I'm not sure why anyone would want the rogue at tier 1. I could see tier 2 maybe, but wizards are broken so why break more classes to 'fix' the problem?

[edit]: Should have refreshed the post before posting. I got ninja'd even with 20 minutes leeway.

Yitzi
2013-06-14, 12:10 AM
Honestly I'm not sure why anyone would want the rogue at tier 1. I could see tier 2 maybe, but wizards are broken so why break more classes to 'fix' the problem?

I don't think I have ever wished the gitp forums had a "like" feature as much as I do now.

(That said, I think it is possible to design a set of tier 1-2 classes that aren't broken when used with each other, though they'd have to lose a few of the current spells. Also, because tier 1s, and tier 2s to a lesser extent, all have the same role*, having a gestalt-style dual progression in tier 1-2 and tier 3-4 would make for richer party dynamics.)

*Namely "anything they want"

Hanuman
2013-06-14, 05:01 AM
The ability to break the action economy and interrupt actions is plenty powerful even if restricted in uses/day. A wizard can only cast his top-level spells a few times per day, but he's still tier 1.
Actually you aren't breaking the action economy, you're simply using an immediate ability which then delays your initiative. Technically speaking you're getting the equivalent of an immediate-ability in trade for delaying future actions.

What I mean by interrupts is that you could attempt to pop an action, it wouldn't be unavoidable, similar to concentration you'd attempt to foil their action.

Like, you could subtract # SA die to make an interrupt and deal SA damage on your attack even if they aren't denied dexterity modifier, similar to called shot ability. They'd make a fort save (or concentration if they wish), if they fail then their action is foiled.

This'd work for readied actions, but higher level you would be able to make an attack as an immediate action as an ability, and you could use this on your interrupt class feature.

Hows that looking?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMsQhI089Qk
Watch archer's actions in this, this is essentially what I'm talking about.
Also sorry about the video, it was like a pilot cinematic for Guild Wars 1 back in 2005-ish.

Yitzi
2013-06-14, 10:13 AM
Actually you aren't breaking the action economy, you're simply using an immediate ability which then delays your initiative.

Immediate actions do not delay your initiative; you're probably thinking of readied actions.


What I mean by interrupts is that you could attempt to pop an action, it wouldn't be unavoidable, similar to concentration you'd attempt to foil their action.

So why not just use an attack which would then require concentration as usual?

Omnicrat
2013-06-14, 12:52 PM
When was the last time the OP posted?

Zelkon
2013-06-14, 01:23 PM
When was the last time the OP posted?

Yesterday or the day before. He was on this morning though. Why do you ask?

Omnicrat
2013-06-14, 01:36 PM
Yesterday or the day before. He was on this morning though. Why do you ask?

I thought it was longer than that. Because I was going to keep critiquing this, but I'm not going to do that if the OP is gone, so I'm waiting for him to post again before making more points/counter-points.

Hanuman
2013-06-14, 05:13 PM
Immediate actions do not delay your initiative; you're probably thinking of readied actions.



So why not just use an attack which would then require concentration as usual?

@Initiative
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15423448&postcount=37
No, reset initiative as a balancing mechanism. Contextually you'd just twitch an action and slow down your next ones.

@Concentration
Because 3.5 concentration is based on skill-points and pathfinder concentration is based on casting stat, having a save based on skill-ranks that disables actions on-fail is broken, having it based on casting stat only works for spells. You could modify pathfinder concentration to work with Con for the physical actions, but you may as well just use fort.

Yitzi
2013-06-15, 09:25 PM
@Initiative
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15423448&postcount=37

Ah, I wasn't clear there, sorry. When I said "as if it were readied", I meant that it could interrupt another's action. As a bonus standard action, it would not change initiative the way a real readied action would.


@Concentration
Because 3.5 concentration is based on skill-points and pathfinder concentration is based on casting stat, having a save based on skill-ranks that disables actions on-fail is broken

Why? Especially if you let the rogue add his ranks in some skill to the concentration DC of any check that he forces...

Hanuman
2013-06-16, 02:25 AM
Why? Especially if you let the rogue add his ranks in some skill to the concentration DC of any check that he forces...

Too swingy, you're essentially allowing a skill that only a few casters have to have 1skp/+1save to a maximum of 4+Level+Con. It grants bonuses to defeating the attack too easily and it doesn't apply it to the classes who it makes sense to, such as a brute, a warforged charger, an elephant on PCP, ect.

Pathfinder is better as it doesn't have the skillpoint issue, but worse because it only could be applied to spells as it uses main casting stat.

Yitzi
2013-06-16, 07:20 AM
Too swingy, you're essentially allowing a skill that only a few casters have to have 1skp/+1save to a maximum of 4+Level+Con. It grants bonuses to defeating the attack too easily and it doesn't apply it to the classes who it makes sense to, such as a brute, a warforged charger, an elephant on PCP, ect.

Those classes will resist the disruption by the simple virtue of taking actions that don't require a concentration check even if you're attacked in the middle.

tarkisflux
2013-06-16, 01:30 PM
This is pretty late to the party and the OP hasn't responded in a bit, but whatever.

Bumping a rogue to T1 is a somewhat trivial affair if you want to do it with scrolls. They already get to be a spellcaster with gear only limited spell access through UMD, so giving them a "pull scrolls from nowhere as a swift action" style class feature to keep the spells flowing and a bump to UMD of about +10 or so to keep the checks easy (since custom UMD skill items aren't something you want to depend on) pretty much covers it. The minimum attribute thing isn't relevant after you start casting CL 10 scrolls because of the scaling, so the bonus pretty much covers you with only a small chance of failure per attempt.

Depending on how the class feature is written you may have fewer spells per day than the actual casting classes, but you can grab potentially any spell from any list some number of times per day (and that number would need to be decently high to compete). You basically have ridiculous versatility while matching spellcaster power if not their spell numbers. I think that's an extremely unsatisfying way of doing it, I'm just throwing it out there.

And in case you wanted to see another pick-pocket variant, which is admittedly more complicated, I'll just leave this here (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Revised_Pickpocketing_(3.5e_Variant_Rule)).

On to what's actually in the class!

Savvy Pool: From levels 1-10 you can spend half your points for full SA, and the other half on equal(ish) CR darkstalker or a few rerolls / teleport hops per round. There's actual tactical choice in there because of the pool and cost scaling. After 10 it just goes off the rails, and by 20 you have 26 points to spend on rerolls and hops after spending up to full SA and darkstalker. While that might be intentional, I'm not really for that sort of resource management explosion. Particularly with the lack of high cost, high level savvy options.

As an alternative, you could just do Savvy Pool = Int mod. Full SA or full darkstalker costs 2 points. Other costs would be unchanged since they already scale with level, or are re-rolls and don't scale anyway. That removes the resource explosion at later levels that I don't think you really need (mostly because of the other abilities and counter stuff) and much of the fiddly resource management.

Underground Contacts: It's sort of ambiguous whether you spend the standard action for one of those things or for all of those things. Maybe drop the word "instead" in the advancement text so that the choice is more obvious?

Reflexive Combat: This ability looks non-awesome at first, until you remember that you can make balance checks in place of reflex saves starting at level 6 (which you referenced earlier). This makes balance skill items really really strong as cheap AC boosts, and means you're basically never going to be hit so long as you keep that up. Since it's cheap as free in any savvy pool mechanic, it will always be up. And since tons of stuff triggers on a miss (find an opening, don't blink, slip behind), making an attack roll against the Rogue just means that they get to do bad things to you. Ranged revenge rogue is a reasonable build at that point, and they don't need a lot of savvy to pull it off.

Discussion of what their touch and flatfooted ACs are while this is active would also be nice.

Dextrous Will: For the love of <insert relevant figure here>, please specify that this forces you to use your actual reflex save and that you can't swap out the referred to reflex save for a balance check. Balance check reflex saves are nuts enough as it is.

Disguise Surroundings: Like underground contacts, maybe drop the word "instead" in the advancement text so that the choice is more obvious?

And if you're going to let magic pierce it it should probably be Su instead of Ex.

Gone Underground: The fluff text indicates that it can be suppressed, but you don't say that you can do so or how it works.

General Comments
All spell and power references need a way to determine CL for effect purposes. Shadow walk, dimension hop, etc. Half of them have it, so this is mostly just a completeness thing.

There's been some discussion about making things that you can't beat without opposing skills instead of saves. If you want to make the answer to rogue another rogue, that's not a bad plan. I don't think it's a particularly fair one, since even the much maligned wizard throws down powers that people generally have a decent shot at saving against and this removes that likelihood. It might be ok for some utility effects though, in the same way that epic skill checks can do utility things that don't get blocked. There's also been discussion about tying save DCs to the rogue's skill check instead of his level. Given the large disparity between the scaling of these systems and the size of potential item bonuses, I don't think this is worth seriously considering and that you're right to not do so.

Someone also mentioned replacing the don't blink teleport with a move action. I'm not sure you need to replace it, but an immediate action move action that took effect before the triggering action resolved (so you can move out of AoEs or behind cover or whatever) might be a useful addition. A rogue version of the Tome Fighter's foil if you will, without all of the annoyances of that ability. It's not like they have anything else to do with their swift or immediate actions after getting their balance check AC out.

And for a direct quote -

Suppose you took nearly every ability, and renamed them to Rogue's Tricks. Gave them a level. Said you auto-learn a Trick every level. And you can have "prepared" one Trick of each level. And you can learn additional tricks from other Rogues or find them written down (gold price can be set).

Changing which Trick is prepared might take as little as full round action (long enough not to be able to do it in combat).

Now your Rogue can collect Tricks like a Wizard collects spells.

This. If you want a more versatile rogue, do this. It means writing up a bunch of new abilities or splitting up abilities perhaps and might be annoying, but it would be a broader class.

Hanuman
2013-06-16, 06:20 PM
Those classes will resist the disruption by the simple virtue of taking actions that don't require a concentration check even if you're attacked in the middle.

facepalm

Ok, stop thinking RAW, the mechanic would be that you could interrupt an action, I was discussing how making a concentration check wouldn't be a great mechanic to save vs. that on actions which weren't spells.

Yitzi
2013-06-16, 09:49 PM
facepalm

Ok, stop thinking RAW

This is homebrew, we're talking RAH rather than RAW anyway. But if we're discussing mechanics, that means using the rules, of course..


I was discussing how making a concentration check wouldn't be a great mechanic to save vs. that on actions which weren't spells.

I'm not so sure it's a bad idea. It's an already-present mechanic, already comes with convenient and intuitive rules about what actually requires a concentration check (mainly spells and skills, not attacks), and fits in nicely with the idea of distraction/interruption.

Pretty much the only flaw is that it requires the skillmonkeys to be able to take concentration...well, the three major skillmonkey classes are bard, factotum, and rogue, so if we just give the rogue concentration (probably a good idea anyway, and we are rebuilding the rogue here), that'll solve that problem.

Hanuman
2013-06-16, 10:50 PM
This is homebrew, we're talking RAH rather than RAW anyway. But if we're discussing mechanics, that means using the rules, of course..



I'm not so sure it's a bad idea. It's an already-present mechanic, already comes with convenient and intuitive rules about what actually requires a concentration check (mainly spells and skills, not attacks), and fits in nicely with the idea of distraction/interruption.

Pretty much the only flaw is that it requires the skillmonkeys to be able to take concentration...well, the three major skillmonkey classes are bard, factotum, and rogue, so if we just give the rogue concentration (probably a good idea anyway, and we are rebuilding the rogue here), that'll solve that problem.
Casters and skillmonkeys can easily counter it, where as warriors cant, if you used Fort saves for physical actions anyone who's actually hearty will be granted a natural bonus anyway.

Yitzi
2013-06-17, 06:55 AM
Casters and skillmonkeys can easily counter it, where as warriors cant.

Warriors won't need to counter it, because if you attack someone who's in the middle of attacking they don't need to make a concentration check. Whereas if the rogue gets a bonus to the concentration DC, casters and skillmonkeys will have difficulty countering it.

Hanuman
2013-06-18, 04:11 PM
Warriors won't need to counter it, because if you attack someone who's in the middle of attacking they don't need to make a concentration check. Whereas if the rogue gets a bonus to the concentration DC, casters and skillmonkeys will have difficulty countering it.
K, it was about interrupting actions as a flat ability but I'm done this circle.

Yitzi
2013-06-18, 04:17 PM
K, it was about interrupting actions as a flat ability

Yeah, that would be a horrible idea if keyed to concentration. When I said it could interrupt another's action, I just meant take place during it, not actually stop the other action from working.

rockdeworld
2013-06-27, 12:32 AM
Hey again. I've been absent a week or 2 due to final exam stuff and doing an SGT (below), but I'm not going to leave this alone until it's really good.

I ran dnd-wiki's Same Game Test (http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Dungeons_and_Dragons_Wiki:Same_Game_Test) with my rogue (in a previous, but still related version), and here are the results. I skipped some of the level 15 tests for some because I didn't have source material and for others because I wanted to get a move on and make some more changes to the rogue. For posterity, this is the rogue I use for this test:
Hit Die: d6
Base Attack Bonus: Full
Good Saving Throws: Reflex
Skill Points: 8+Int
Class Skills: Appraise (Int), Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Int), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Forgery (Int), Gather Information (Cha), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (any) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Open Lock (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), Use Magic Device (Cha), and Use Rope (Dex)
Alignment: Any
Proficiencies: Rogues are proficient with all simple weapons, all light melee weapons, all ranged martial weapons, and the rapier. Rogues are proficient with light armor and light shields.

{table=head]Level|Abilities
01|Savvy Pool 1, Deflection, Luck, Sneak Attack, Finesse, Trapfinding
02|Savvy Pool 2, Combat Reflexes, Lightning Reflexes
03|Savvy Pool 3, Blade Flick, Trap Sense, Underground Contacts (Locate Object)
04|Savvy Pool 4, Reflexive Combat, Uncanny Dodge
05|Savvy Pool 5, Find An Opening, Full Strip
06|Savvy Pool 6, Don't Blink, Dextrous Will
07|Savvy Pool 7, Double Jump, Underground Contacts (Locate Creature)
08|Savvy Pool 8, Cover Me, Disguise Surroundings (Seeming, Mirage Arcana), Improved Uncanny Dodge
09|Savvy Pool 9, Gone Underground, Underground Contacts (Contact Other Plane)
10|Savvy Pool 10, Out Of Sight, Special Ability
11|Savvy Pool 12, Ingrain Muscle Memory, Disguise Surroundings (Veil)
12|Savvy Pool 14, Special Ability
13|Savvy Pool 16, Step Into Darkness
14|Savvy Pool 18, Special Ability
15|Savvy Pool 20, Disguise Surroundings (Screen), Underground Contacts (Discern Location)
16|Savvy Pool 25, Special Ability
17|Savvy Pool 30, Souls Are Cash
18|Savvy Pool 35, Special Ability
19|Savvy Pool 40, Dark Revival
20|Savvy Pool 46, Two Places At Once, Special Ability
[/table]

Savvy Pool (Ex): A rogue gains a pool of savvy points that represent the savviness he picks up just by staying alive. A rogue's savvy pool returns to max at the beginning of his turn.

For purposes of prerequisites, a rogue is considered to have sneak attack equal to half his total savvy pool, rounded up. Prestige classes that advance sneak attack also advance his savvy pool by 2 points per die. Feats that require a rogue to give up sneak attack dice instead require him to spend a point from his savvy pool per die sacrificed.

Deflection (Ex): Whenever an enemy makes an attack against a rogue, the rogue can spend a point from his savvy pool, as a nonaction, to force that enemy to reroll his attack. The decision to use this ability must be made before damage is rolled.

Luck (Ex): As a nonaction, a rogue can spend a point from his savvy pool to reroll one roll he has just made. If he does, he cannot use the old result.

Sneak Attack (Ex): As a free action, a rogue can spend a point from his savvy pool to gain sneak attack +1d6 until the start his next turn. This ability works as with the 3.5 rogue with one exception: creatures immune to critical hits or precision damage instead take half damage from a rogue's sneak attack. A rogue attacks a construct's mechanical weak point, dismembers undead, strikes a plant's roots, lacerates bizarre anatomy, or scoops out chunks of ooze. Multiple uses of this ability stack.

A rogue can never have spend more than half his class level in savvy points, rounded up, on this ability.

Finesse (Ex): When using a light weapon, rapier, or whip made for a creature of his size category, a rogue may use his Dexterity modifier instead of his Strength modifier on attack rolls. If he carries a shield, its armor check penalty applies to his attack rolls.

Trapfinding (Ex): As the 3.5 rogue.

Combat Reflexes (Ex): At 2nd level, a rogue can make a number of extra attacks of opportunity equal to his Dexterity bonus.

Lightning Reflexes (Ex): At 2nd level, a rogue gains Lightning Reflexes as a bonus feat.

Blade Flick (Ex): At 3rd level, When using a weapon that Finesse applies to, a rogue adds his dexterity modifier to damage rolls.

Trap Sense (Ex): At 3rd level, a rogue gains an intuitive sense that alerts him to danger from traps, giving him an insight bonus equal to half his class level (rounded down) on saves against trap effects and to his AC against attacks made by traps.

Underground Contacts (Ex): At 3rd level, a rogue becomes known as a person who can find things. At the end of a Gather Information check, he can, as a standard action, mimic the effects of Locate Object with caster level equal to his character level.

At 7th level, this ability allows him to mimic the effects of Locate Creature.

At 9th level, this ability allows him to mimic the effects of Contact Other Plane.

At 15th level, this ability allows him to mimic the effects of Discern Location.

Reflexive Combat (Ex): At 4th level, as an immediate action, a rogue can spend a point from his savvy pool to make a roll as if he were making a reflex save. He may use the result as his base AC for a number of rounds equal to his Base Attack Bonus, meaning his AC is equal to the result of his reflex save + armor bonus + shield bonus + size modifier + other modifiers. If he does, he cannot use this ability again until the duration has expired.

Uncanny Dodge (Ex): As the 3.5 rogue.

Find An Opening (Ex): At 5th level, whenever someone makes an attack roll that doesn't beat a rogue's AC, they are denied their dexterity bonus to AC against the rogue until the beginning of their next turn.

Full Strip (Ex): At 5th level, the rogue can steal any number of items as a standard action. By succeeding on a DC 20 Sleight of Hand check + 1 per previous attempt this action, the rogue can steal an extra item and store it on his person. Failure on any of the checks provokes an attack of opportunity.

Don't Blink (Ex): At 6th level, whenever someone makes an attack roll that doesn't beat a rogue's AC, the rogue may spend a point from his savvy pool to teleport a short distance, as though he had used Dimension Hop.

Dextrous Will (Ex): At 6th level, a rogue can dodge mental attacks. He can spend a point from his savvy pool to make a reflex save in place of a will save.

Double Jump (Ex): At 7th level, a rogue can use bits of fluff in the surrounding space as a platform for jumps. The rogue can make jump checks even if he is not standing on anything that could support his weight. The DC for the jump check is 30 + 1 per previous attempt this turn. Success means the rogue can jump a distance determined by the result of his check. Yes, this means he can cancel falling damage by jumping before he reaches the ground.

Cover Me (Ex): At 8th level, a rogue can use allies as cover. If he succeeds a hide check while using an ally as cover, he can stay hidden as long as the ally is visible or until he attacks. A rogue using this ability can have cover against and hide from one enemy even if another can see him.

Disguise Surroundings (Ex): At 8th level, a rogue becomes a master of disguises. At the end of a disguise check, he can, as a standard action, mimic the effects of Seeming or Mirage Arcana with caster level equal to his character level. The saving throw DC for these abilities is 10 + 1/2 the rogue's HD + his Cha modifier.

At 11th level, this ability allows him to mimic the effects of Veil.

At 15th level, this ability allows him to mimic the effects of Screen.

Divination effects that see through illusions are also effective against this ability. Creatures do not resume their normal appearance when slain.

Improved Uncanny Dodge (Ex): As the 3.5 rogue.

Gone Underground (Ex): At 9th level, a rogue can't be found if he doesn't want to be. He is continuously protected from all devices, powers, and spells that reveal location.

The ability even foils bend reality, limited wish, miracle, reality revision, and wish when they are used to gain information about the rogue’s location. In the case of remote viewing or scrying that scans an area a rogue is in, the effect works, but the rogue simply isn't detected. Remote viewing or scrying attempts that are targeted specifically at the rogue do not work.

Out Of Sight (Ex): At 10th level, a rogue can hide from anything. By spending a point from his savvy pool as a free action, the rogue gains the benefits of the Darkstalker feat against enemies of CR 2 or less until the beginning of his next turn. Multiple uses of this ability in one turn add 2 to the CR per savvy point spent.

Ingrain Muscle Memory (Ex): At 11th level, a rogue can train his muscles to react even when his mind can't reach them. After 10 minutes of mental preparation, he can create a contingency. He chooses a single action that he can perform at the time of preparation (eg. use a skill, make an attack, activate a magic item), and sets the conditions for the contingency. He can use any of his rogue abilities that would normally be available as part of the chosen action (eg. hide and use Don't Blink). He can draw an object and use it as part of a contingency, but if he doesn't have the item on his person, or it takes longer than a move action to draw it, at the time the conditions are met, the chosen action is wasted. And he'll look pretty silly trying to get his dagger to cast Teleport.

The conditions needed to bring the contingency into effect must be clear, although they can be general. In all cases, the contingency immediately brings into effect the chosen action, the latter being done instantaneously when the prescribed circumstances occur, even if the rogue would normally be unable to accomplish the action (eg. from being stunned, cowering, or dead). If complicated or convoluted conditions are prescribed, the chosen action may fail when called on. The chosen action occurs based solely on the stated conditions, regardless of whether you want it to.

A contingency lasts for 1 day per level or until discharged. A rogue can only have one contingency created at a time.

Step Into Darkness (Ex): At 13th level, a rogue learns how to walk the paths of darkness. Whenever he succeeds a Hide check, as a nonaction, he can mimic the effects of Shadow Walk.

Souls Are Cash (Sp): At 17th level, a rogue can steal souls for use as currency. As a standard action, a rogue can spend a savvy point to mimic the effects of Soul Bind.

Dark Revival(Ex): At 19th level, a rogue always comes back. If he is ever slain, his body dissolves within one round and begins reforming on the Plane of Shadow. The reforming takes 1d4 days to complete. In the meantime, the rogue's senses travel with an illusory double that acts like a Trickery Devotion duplicate that appears at the start of his next turn after his death in the place he died. He can continue using the duplicate until he dismisses it or it is destroyed. In either case, his senses return to his body after the duplicate is gone.

Two Places At Once (Ex): At 20th level, a rogue can always have the perfect alibi. As a standard action, he can spend a point from his savvy pool to mimic the effects of Body Outside Body with caster level equal to his character level. He can dismiss the duplicates as a nonaction.

Special Abilities
Add the following to the list of special abilities the rogue can pick from:

Don't Look For Me (Ex)
Whenever the rogue is targeted by a device, power, spell or other effect that reveals location, he immediately becomes aware of the attempt, and may choose to send the creature who originated the effect a nightmarish vision. They must succeed on a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the rogue's HD + his Cha modifier) to disbelieve the nightmare or die from fear.

Mind Blank (Sp)
The rogue is continuously protected by the Mind Blank spell.

Slip Behind (Ex)
Whenever someone makes an attack roll that doesn't beat the rogue's AC, they provoke an attack of opportunity from the rogue.

Stab Essence (Ex)
The rogue has learned how to attack the very essence of a person, resulting in wounds that cannot be healed normally. All damage dealt by a rogue is treated as though it were Vile damage for purposes of healing effects, and his attacks ignore damage reduction.


Now the results. For reference, I don't use "Sure win" unless the odds are overwhelmingly in the testee's favor, eg. all opponents only hit on a 20 and he can take them down quickly, or he can win without risk, eg. while sitting at home drinking coffee. For this test, I use these hypothetical stats with elite array: 10/15/14/13/8/12

Level 5 test:
stats: 10/16/14/13/8/12, HP 5d6+10 = 27

Assumed items: a masterwork tool for common skills, chainmail, a weapon the rogue can use Finesse with, a longbow
1. A locked door behind an arbitrarily high number of assorted CR 4 traps.
rogue search L5 = 8 ranks + 1 int + 2 trap sense + 2 masterwork item = +13, trap search DCs 20-28 (success on 7-15)
A level 5 rogue has 5 SP, and can spend all of them on each search check, since they essentially take 1 round each. Ignoring the traps with less than a DC28 search check, and assuming there's no multiple abjurations to give a +4 search bonus, he misses at the following rate:
0 sp 0.7
1 sp 0.49
2 sp 0.343
3 sp 0.2401
4 sp 0.16807
5 sp 0.117649

So he doesn't find 11% of the traps. Of those, we have Bestow Curse DC14 Will auto-reset that activates on Chaotic creatures, Glyph of Warding 2d8 vs DC14 ref with no reset, a lightning bolt 5d6 vs DC14 ref autoreset, and Sepia Snake Sigil vs DC14 ref with no reset. Arbitrary amount of traps means the rogue can't use Luck against all of them, so I'll ignore it.
Bestow Curse: Bad will save means the rogue loses and sucks.
Glyph of Warding: Reflex +10 means rogue saves
Lightning bolt: same
Sepia Snake Sigil: same

rogue disable device L5 = 8 ranks + 1 int + 2 trap sense + 2 masterwork item = +13, trap DD DCs 17-28
Unlike search, the rogue can't use Luck (except with a generous DM), so he fails 70% of the high-DC disable device checks.

He can probably unlock the door though.

On the other hand, if the rogue has wands of Knock and Summon Monster 1, he can UMD a celestial tree sloth to open the door and take the hits.
rogue UMD l5 = 8 ranks + 1 cha + 2 masterwork item = +11, 5 sp gives ~25% failure rate, so likely win

So the rogue has a Sure Loss if he uses one of his main class features, but a Likely Win if he uses UMD. I don't know how to call it (likely loss?)

Side note: the scrapped Insight ability was created in part to deal with this, and would give the rogue a +15 bonus required for a sure win using Trapfinding.

2. A huge Animated iron statue in a throne room.
rogue l5 tumble = 8 ranks + 3 dex + 2 masterwork item = +13 tumble, Luck can reroll 1s so he auto-succeeds approaching without being hit

3 sp for 3d6 SA, divided by 2 against a construct
1 sp for Reflexive Combat = 20 AC average + 4 armor + 3 Dex = AC 27, enemy hits on a 18
1 sp floating for Luck or Deflection (alt. 2d6 SA leaves 2sp for both), deflection every round means the animated object will never virtually never hit the rogue or be able to start a grapple, and Find The Opening means the rogue can then SA every round.

Likely win.

3. A Basilisk in its desert burrow.
Assuming the basilisk didn't steal anything, Locate Object won't help find it, so we'll assume it starts combat.
rogue fort 1 class + 2 con = +3 vs DC13, success 55% of the time before Luck rerolls, >95% after 4 rerolls, so success. If the rogue has a mirrored object, he can pull it out and engage. Then the fight proceeds the same as #2, so sure win.

If not, he has to avert or close his eyes and fight, and the basilisk is comparable to the rogue without SA, so it's about 50-50.

Likely win.

4. A Large Fire Elemental in a mystic forge.
First assume it's a hot environment, so the rogue makes a fort save DC15 with a -4 penalty, succeeds on a 16, so 17% failure rate to take 1d4 heat damage and become fatigued.

The elemental has spring attack and reach, so it can run forward 20', hit the rogue, and run 25' away to end 35' away. If the rogue has a wand of longstrider he can match that speed, otherwise he has to charge each turn (and can't do that if he's fatigued) or use a bow.

Luckily the rogue has good dex, and his to-hit with a longbow is +8, so he hits 50-55% of the time against the elemental, or more if he uses Luck. The elemental's to-hit and AC are similar to a large animated object, and he still loses his +5 dex mod by whiffing the rogue, so after a few rounds of Deflection and SA, the rogue should come out on top.

Likely win.

5. A Manticore on the wing above a plain.
In an open plain, they spot each other at about the same time. Rogue pulls out his longbow and activates Reflexive Combat. Manticore starts with spikes. Each spike hits on a 19, success rate 1/100 after a Deflection reroll, and the rogue can deflect 5/turn, probably 4 on the first turn after reflexive combat, so 5 have a 10% hit rate, so average 4 damage from the 24 spikes total. Then it's the rogue's +8 to hit for 15 SA damage with his bow vs the manticore's 15-17 AC and the manticore's +10 to hit for 10 damage on a flyby attack vs the rogue's 27 AC. The rogue can afford 3 sp for SA and 2 sp for Deflection to make sure he gets it every round. Even if the manticore attempts to close for a full-attack, the rogue can retreat and pelt it with the bow.

Likely win.

6. A Phase Spider anywhere. They're tricky creatures like that.
The spider gets the drop on the rogue because it's invisible, but the rogue has uncanny dodge so he uses reflexive combat and deflects the spider's attack. The rogue retreats a bit every turn so that the spider has to use its move action to approach, rather than shift back to the ethereal plane on its turn. Then as the above battles, except the phase spider has lower stats than those enemies.

However, the phase spider also has higher speed, so it can spend a turn getting around the rogue and ambushing it. In this case the rogue has to ready an attack action to hit it once it becomes material, and it'd still get an attack against the rogue, who wouldn't be able to SA. In this case it's the rogue and spider duking it out, and the spider only hits on a 20.

Likely win.

7. A couple of Centaur Archers in a light to medium wood.
Centaurs lose even in pairs. The rogue can hide and SA, plus use a bow anywhere they can to better effect with SA. The only difference from a single one is that the rogue has to allocate an extra sp for deflecting them both, lowering his SA.

Likely win.

8. A Howler/Allip tag team in an abandoned temple to a dark god.
The difficulty here is in the Allip.
rogue will l5 = 1 - 1 Wis = +0 vs DC 16, so 17% failure rate to be hypnotised, but the Howler's attack or Allip's incorporeal touch breaks that effect. So that could be 14 damage and 2.5 Wis drain.

The rogue starts with Reflexive Combat and effectively negates the Allip. But either enemy hitting him could be dangerous, so he saves a Deflection sp for both. Then he moves away from the duo so the howler can't full attack and pulls out a weapon. He can take out the Howler just like the other encounters. The problem is how to deal with the allip. If he has an oil of magic weapon, or just a straight up magic weapon, he can drop it, but he has no inherent abilities that let him deal with incorporeal creatures. With a good intimidate check he might scare it away or diplomacy befriend it, but that's unlikely in the extreme.

I'm not sure how to call this either. Likely loss?

9. A Grimlock assault team (4 members) hidden in a cavern.
Grimlocks hidden stay hidden b/c the rogue can't spot worth a da**. The rogue can't hide from them either. Unlucky for them, getting the jump on the rogue isn't worth much. Even if they all charge in and flank at the same time, the rogue can still use Reflexive Combat and it's pretty much over.

Sure win.

10. A Cleric of Hextor (with his dozen zombies) in a crypt.
I'm not really sure how to adjucate this one, since a cleric would have to be level 24 to command a dozen zombies, but whatever. Assuming the cleric is level 5 and the zombies aren't under his command so much as in his general vicinity, he has definitely already cast Desecrate to buff the zombies so they have +3 to hit and 20 HP apiece.

Other than that, it's hard to pin down what the cleric will do, since clerics have so many options available to them. The rogue can steal the cleric's everything except armor and weapon, but I'm not sure that that'll stop the cleric.

If the cleric functions as a healbot and only uses Inflict X Wounds on his zombies, the rogue will slaughter him, since even with buffs the zombies can't hit the rogue's AC, meaning as a group they deal 2.7 damage per round on average, and the rogue deals 1d6 weapon + 3 dex + 3d6/2 SA ~= 11 damage per round, so he can take 1 down every other or every 3rd round and force them to follow him without geting off an attack because he's using his bow. Likely win.

If the cleric buffs himself and wades into combat (or uses archery), it probably depends on how well each character is optimized. The cleric has excellent buffs to choose from, but it'll be difficult for him to hit the rogue's AC with Reflexive Combat and Deflection (not to mention the rogue has the edge on him if this is a Tome game), and as long as the rogue can avoid the zombies, he'll have little trouble from them. However, he'll also have trouble hitting the cleric's AC, and so may have to use more Luck and less SA. As long as he keeps up the rerolls though, and doesn't let the cleric use a bunch of situational modifiers against him, he'll probably come out on top. The question is if he can do that. Toss up.
Possible cleric's to-hit: 3 class + 4 str (with Bull's Str) + 1 Bless + 1 Magic Weapon + 1 Weapon Focus (War Domain) + 2 flanking with undead + 4 against a tripped rogue = +16 vs AC 27, hit on a 11, 50% hit rate, 2 Deflections give about 12.5% hit rate.

If the cleric stands behind a Sanctuary and spams Fort/Will-based BFC at the rogue like Blindness, Hold Person, and Command, it'd be a very difficult battle for the rogue, because he'd have to use most of his sp on Luck for saves, and one or two failed saves could cost him the battle. However, if the rogue can survive all the SoL's, eg by saving all his sp for Luck rerolls on saves every turn, and outlast the cleric's spell list while kiting the zombies, he can win. The question is if he can do that. If he has a wand of dispel magic, he should be ok just counterspelling for awhile. Likely loss, I think.

I'm not sure how to call this one, but since I have one of each, I'll just say Toss Up.

Level 5 results: 2 likely losses, 1 toss up, 6 likely wins, 1 sure win = -1*2 + 0*1 + 1*6 + 2*1 = 6/10. That's definitely a change from 0, which would be all toss-ups, so I think the rogue is probably on the upper end of high balance category or the lower end of the very-high balance category. I don't think the assumed items include anything out of the ordinary for this level, but if you disagree let me know.


Level 10 test:
Assumed items: Previous, plus about 2000gp liquid assets, masterwork bow, masterwork Finesse weapon, access to custom magic items (i.e. items that should exist but aren't listed in the core rules)

Hypothetical stats: 10/17/14/13/8/12, HP 10d6+20 = 55
Fort 2 con + 3 class = +5
Ref 3 dex + 13 balance ranks + 2 Tumble synergy + 2 masterwork tool = +20
Will = Ref = +20
AC (with Reflexive Combat) avg 10.5 + 20 Ref = 30.5

1. A hallway filled with magical runes.
If he has a deciphered scroll of teleport, he can probably use that to get through the hall. A wand of summon monster 1 could set off the no-reset runes too. Barring that, he can use his Underground Contacts (Contact Other Plane) to find out exacly what the hallway contains, leave, buy or steal the appropriate wand (eg. Dimension Door) and come back and bypass the hall. Likely Win.

2. A Fire Giant on an active volcano, who hides under lava if kited.
The rogue uses Mirage Arcana to move the apparant lava to a place it isn't, then kites the heck out of the Fire Giant. If the giant saves, he repeats the process. Sure Win.

3. A Young Blue Dragon, soaring over a seemingly endless expanse of sand dunes.
Fatigued from heat or not, the rogue laughs at the dragon's breath weapon and kites him, with Reflexive Combat to make sure the dragon can't hit him. Likely win.

4. A Bebilith hidden on the ceiling of a cave in the abyss.
First off, Rogue uses UC(CoP) to find out he'll face a Bebelith today, and buys 1-2 oils of align weapon. And maybe some extra-strength Raid.

The rogue finds the Bebelith with Locate Creature, and prebuffs with align weapon on a bow and RC. He finds cover, hides (13 ranks + 3 dex + 2 masterwork tool = +18, with 5~10 Luck rerolls to get a high roll), then kites the Bebelith with 5d6 SA, teleporting with Don't Blink or readied actions as necessary to keep away from its superior speed and denying it the ability to close to melee and grapple. Likely win.

5. A Vrock in a demonic forest.
Epic anime battle with the two combatants teleporting through a forest, exchanging blows and creating flashes of light, etc., etc.

I don't know what a demonic forest does, but I imagine it attempts to trip people and eat them, so I'll factor in a trip attempt as if by a Treant every round (melee +12 to hit, str check +17 vs rogue's dex check +3). The melee touch attacks don't hit the rogue's AC, so it only works 1/20 turns.

Same prebuffs as with the Bebelith plus oiling the Finesse weapon, but the rogue is more likely to fail a hide against the vrock, unless he has put effort into his hide skill, so probably doesn't get a surprise round. The Vrock pre-buffs with Heroism and Mirror Image (6-7 images), then can open with Telekinesis-throwing a bunch of weapons at +13 to hit for ~144 damage altogether (3x6d6 gargantuan greatswords, 3x4d6 huge greatswords, 6x1d6 medium javelins), but that doesn't beat the rogue's AC so it deals 7 damage on average (with a large standard deviation).

Rogue counterattacks with 5 sp on SA, using the rest on Deflection/Don't Blink.
rogue to-hit +10 class + 3 dex + 1 masterwork/magic bow = +14/+9 vs Vrock's 20 AC without dex, hit rate 75%, or 93% with 1 Luck reroll for the first attack, 50% with the second.
(1d8 bow + 5d6 SA) / 6 mirror images * 0.75 = 2.75 avg damage
+ (1d8 bow + 5d6 SA) / 6 mirror images * 0.5 = 1.83 avg damage
Vrock closes and releases spores pre-attack for 4.5 damage + 25 damage over the next 10 rounds. Then whiffs and rogue teleports away and counterattacks with SA.

Vrock screeches, rogue saves on a 17, with 5 Luck that gives 26% fail rate. If successful, Vrock closes and sets up a full-attack the next round
with still negligible chance vs the rogue's 32 AC because of Luck, for average 2.35 damage. The rogue is unstunned and can trade blows this way so pulls out his Finesse weapon and counterattacks.

Otherwise rogue counterattack without SA. Vrock summons about 10 dretches who start layering Stinking Clouds on the rogue, who saves on an 8, so 65% of the time, and starts losing within a few rounds. Likely loss.

On the other hand, if the rogue had a wand of greater invisibility to start with, he could UMD it to snipe the Vrock with no problem, Likely Win.

It comes down to how well CoP works, and in the case of a Luck-using rogue, it's very reliable. Since I have 1 of each, Toss Up.

6. A tag team of Mind Flayers in a cramped underground structure.
I don't know Mind Flayers, so I have to skip this.

7. An Evil Necromancer in a graveyard with extensive catacombs.
The necromancer can use nondetection if he's a wizard, but the Rogue finds him eventually with repeated attempts at UC(Locate Person).

Presumably the necromancer has earth-based resources, so let's say he has a purple worm skeleton (for burrowing) and a blue dragon skeleton (for flight and maybe burrowing). And some zombies.

As with the L5 cleric, it's tough to tell what the necromancer will do. Will-based BFC will be easier, but Fort-based harder, like Baleful Polymorph. Clerics can go full Codzilla with True Seeing, and wizards can trap a rogue in catacombs with Wall of Stone, two large-gargantaun skeletons, and Cloudkill.

So the rogue's first action is to say F-that. He finds out he'll face a necromancer today with CoP, and prepares accordingly.

In the rogue's favor are:
-very high touch AC from RC (though within range of the two big skeletons)
-very good Ref and Will saves
-DPS
-minor, consistent teleportation
-illusions against a wizard, not cleric
-petty theft (eg of a spell-component pouch or holy symbol)
-more effective divinations than his opponent
-inability to be divined by his opponent (the wizard/cleric can find out information about him, but not his location)

If he has optimized hiding, he can use his Out Of Sight ability to sneak up on the wizard and hopefully kill him. That assumes he can bypass the wizard's defenses. An alarm spell could foil the whole thing, as could displacement, especially persistent displacement, at which point cue the skeletons and cloudkilling.

I do see a way to win this though. The rogue starts with a potion of detect magic, and a scroll/wand of dimensional anchor. Then he aims for any illusions and takes them out, replacing them with his own Mirage Arcanas (they're free, so may as well, even if it's a cleric necro). Then hits the wizard with dimensional anchor so he can't teleport away. Then goes face-to-face with sneak attack on one hand and Luck/Deflection rerolls on the other. The odds are still against the rogue, but it's doable. And the cleric is probably easier than the wizard.

Specific builds may have a better time with this, but then specific wizard/cleric builds might make it harder. So overall I'll call this likely loss.

8. 6 Trolls in a small cave behind a waterfall.
As above, the rogue uses CoP to find out about the trolls, then goes to the market.
63 avg hp per troll * 6 trolls = 378 HP / 3.5 dmg per acid vial = 108 vials * 10 gp = 1080 gp.
Buy 150 acid vials just to be safe. Find An Opening means the rogue only misses on a 1 (or a 5 with his secondary attack, but 2 luck rerolls fix that, in case his build has Quick Draw).
Rogue uses Reflexive Combat and the trolls can't touch him. Sure win.

9. 12 Shadows in an inn after the lights have been doused for the night.
Rogue learns about shadows with CoP, buys the wand/oil of Magic Weapon (or a few buckets of holy water), and uses Mirage Arcana to make several hiding spaces for himself that Shadows wouldn't get will saves against, then waits. The shadows come in and the rogue turns on the lights, which is also a pre-arranged signal for everyone else to GTFO, activates Reflexive Combat, and uses Magic Weapon. He kites them or chucks holy water at them, taking out 1 per 2 turns on average (4 with holy water), until they find him and start dealing >0.175 str damage per turn per shadow (so >2 if there's 12 left, >1 if there's 6, etc).

If he has blind-fight or can deal 19 damage per attack instead of 13, he can dispatch the creatures faster. If they move through his reach to make attacks on him, he can make AoOs to finish them faster as well.

If the creatures find him before he's taken out about 5 of them, they'll probably force him to flee. Otherwise he'll probably win.

I'll call this a Toss Up.

Level 10 results: 1 likely losses, 2 toss ups, 3 likely wins, 2 sure wins = -1*2 + 0*2 + 1*3 + 2*2 = 5/9. About the same as Level 5. I still don't think the assumed items include anything out of the ordinary for this level, nor were any of the bought items, but if you disagree let me know.


Level 15 test:
Assumed items: Previous, plus Cloak of Resistance +2**, potion of cat's grace (drunk precombat)**, ring of balancing, an extra 15,000gp liquid assets

Hypothetical stats: 10/22/14/13/8/12, HP 15d6+30 = 82
Fort 2 con + 5 class + 2 Resistance = +9
Ref 6 dex + 18 balance ranks + 2 Tumble synergy + 2 masterwork tool + 2 Resistance + 5 ring = +35
Will = Ref = +35
AC (with Reflexive Combat) avg 10.5 + 35 Ref = 45
To-hit +22/+17/+17
Damage (melee) 1d6 + 8d6 SA + 6 dex, avg 37.5 (or 23.5 against immune-to-SA creatures)
Disguise Surroundings DC 10 + 7 level + 1 Cha = 18

1. A Marut in a metropolis.
To start with, the rogue can now CoP the Marut and use Discern Location to find out exactly where he is. He buys an oil of align weapon and applies it to his weapon before the battle starts.

Lets assume the Marut is after the rogue and doesn't go after bystanders unless they interfere. That simplifies things to the rogue saying something like "It's after me, everyone else get more than 960' away! Hey Marut, I totally went Grand Theft Auto on death's carriage!"

Of the Maruts SLA's, the only one that can affect the rogue with >5% chance is Greater Dispel Magic (but he can use it at will, so a Ring of Counterspelling doesn't help much). If he doesn't use it, he'll only hit on a 20. If he does, the rogue's AC could drop as low as 37, allowing the Marut to hit on a 15, 30% hit rate. 2 sp reduces that below 3%. Less if he uses Awesome Blow or Power Attack.

Meanwhile assuming the Marut is denied his dex to AC, the rogue hits on a 11, 50%, 2 sp makes that 87%, for his first attack, and on a 16 for his secondary attacks, 2sp makes that 57%. So spending 6 sp on Luck for his attack rolls, 8 on SA, and saving 6 for Deflection/Luck for saves, the rogue can go toe-to-toe with the Marut and deal about 47 damage per turn, and take about 0 damage per turn with a 2% chance for blindness or deafness. After 4 turns the Marut is dead. Alternatively the rogue can kite the Marut, using Don't Blink to escape full-attacks, and deal about 31 damage per turn, with less than 1% chance of getting blinded or deafened, and kill the Marut in 6 turns.

Likely win.

(now skipping the encounters I don't have access to)

2. A Drow Priestess with an army of ghouls.
Blah blah CoP Discern Location Blah. The ghouls are more helpful than hurtful. The rogue uses Veil to make himself look like any other ghoul, for the purpose of (1) "forcing" the drow to use True Seeing to find him, and (2) confusing the ghouls and hopefully getting them to attack each other, or not at all. He can also use Screen to keep them in one place by hiding the exits, or buy a scroll of Earthquake to stop them if they're on their way to attack a village or something.

I'm assuming the drow priestess has 14 cleric levels. Being a drow doesn't help her much against a rogue, but being a cleric does. She can use Destruction with an assumed DC of 10 + 7 spell level + we'll say 7 wis = 24, which the rogue only succeeds on a 14. 6 sp brings that up to 95%, so the rogue has to reserve 6 sp for that possibility every turn.

Otherwise Sanctuary no longer works for the cleric, but being CoDzilla does. As I said in #1, the rogue can handle a true-seeing monster. But on the other hand, the cleric can do it better than the Marut (like with Holy Aura).

So Toss Up.

3. A warparty of Cloud Giants, in the process of assaulting the party's favorite village.
I'm going to assume "warparty" means "gang" (CR 15 for 4 giants), rather than "family" (CR 16-19) or "band" (CR 18-20). I think the rogue could beat the band because of the cloud giants' poor SLAs and low caster levels, but it'd throw off the results of this test to include it.

Rogue uses CoP to find out about the giants coming toward the village. He buys an oil of GMW +5, and wands of Obscuring Mist and Gust of Wind. He uses Screen to hide the village in the illusion of a hill or otherwise ignorable piece of scenery, and creates an illusion of the village (and any roads leading to it) several miles away. Then when the giants get close, he covers the illusion in Fog Clouds and hides. The giants will see the road leading to the village and since they're familiar with Fog Clouds themselves, they'll know it's there. They presumably use the battle plan of surrounding the illusory village, one in each direction, then dropping obscuring mists or fog clouds to be unseen, and chucking rocks. The fog cloud around the village should help prevent the giants from realizing they aren't destroying anything with their rocks. Otherwise 2/4 of them will recognize the illusion as soon as their first rock passes through it, given a reasonable interpretation of "interaction" with an illusion. He can't SA the giants while they're inside a cloud, so he uses his wand of Gust of Wind to blow away a cloud, then kite the giant. The giants can't hit his AC, but his secondary attacks hit on a 2 when the giants are denied Dex to AC, so 1 sp each makes that 99% hit rate, so spending 3 sp per full attack he deals an average 109 damage per turn and drops the giant in 2 (or more if it stalls and uses fog cloud again). The other giants may see and come to help, and if each of them uses obscuring mist while another fights, it negates the rogue's SA for several turns, but ultimately the rogue wins out with or without SA.

On the other hand, if the giants make their will saves against the illusion, then 2-3 of the giants can fight the rogue while the others search for the real village. Without a spellcaster they can't dispel the illusion surrounding the village, so the odds are highly against them finding it (essentially they'd have to walk into the illusion to see it). Meanwhile the rogue can dispatch the giants, follow the remaining ones and take them out.

Likely win.

4. A Mature Adult White Dragon, in its cavernous lair on the side of a mountain made entirely of ice, with an extensive series of tunnels it dug to inconvenience creatures that can't burrow or climb icy walls.
Rogue CoPs the dragon, Shadow Walks to the dragon's lair, and uses a wand of Shivering Touch.

Sure Win.

5. A Cornugon in a cave structure with massive, 300 foot caves, who has obscured some of the connecting tunnels with illusions.
Dispel Chaos for +4 AC (total 39) against the rogue and magic circle against good keeps him from approaching. The rogue has 3 tools in overcoming the Cornugon's illusions. 1, every rogue is good at searching extensively by hand, so will interact with any illusions. 2, he has a good will save, so will beat the DC to see through them. 3, he can use Discern Location and/or Locate Creature to find his enemy despite the illusions.

CoP and the rogue gets masterwork silvered ammo for his bow, maybe two or three bows in case one gets sundered, oils of align weapon, and an oil of greater magic weapon +5. He prebuffs before reaching the Cornugon and sets up illusions of his own to hide him from the devil and give him SA in the first round. His hit rate is .75/.5/.5 for average 65 damage per round opposed to the devil's hit rate of .1 for average 2 damage per round plus 8% chance of stun for 2.5 rounds. Luck and Deflection tilt those odds in the rogue's favor even more.

Likely Win.

6. A Gelugon and his Iron Golem bodyguard, travelling hellish glaciers in a blizzard.
I'm going to assume blizzard means windstorm and not Hurricane force like the SRD suggests, because that would mean neither of the enemies could make much progress for being knocked down so much, whereas windstorm only means they'd be checked some of the time. Hurricane-force winds would make it much harder for the rogue to fight these two, but also almost impossible for the iron golem to go anywhere.

Like the Ice Devil, the rogue is in his element due to spot checks being impossible. He CoPs, then gets an adamantine finesse weapon, oils of align weapon and magic weapon +5, a single potion each of bear's endurance, enlarge person and endure elements, and a bunch of pots of of CSW. Then he finds the two with Locate Creature/Discern Location. Then he uses Step Into Darkness and Don't Blink to avoid being checked in movement from the blizzard or the Ice Wall spell.

Ice Devil's effective spells include Persistent Image, Ice Storm and Unholy Aura, and its summon ability can help it if it works to summon another Ice Devil. The Iron Golem's breath weapon can also poison 50% of the time.
Unholy Aura is a tricky beast for the rogue, becuase he succeeds the Fort save vs Str damage on a 13, so has a 40% success rate.

Oils and pots give the rogue AC 43 and To-hit +25/+20/+20, meaning his hit rate against the iron golem is .75/.5/.5 for average 42 damage per round (killing it in 3 rounds) vs the golem hitting him on a 20 for average 2 damage per round. And his hit rate against the Gelugon is .7/.45/.45 (after denying dex and accounting for Unholy Aura) for average 63 damage per turn, assuming Unholy Aura doesn't drain any STR (more on that in a second) vs the Gelugon hitting him on a 20 for 2 damage and <5% chance of Slow.

Now what do those 2 do to him?
IG's breath weapon has 35% chance to deal 2.5 Con damage/use, plus 7.5 a minute later. That can kill the rogue outright, so he has to save at least 3 sp to drop that down to 5% poison rate. By going after the golem first, the rogue can make sure he only gets off 1 breath weapon.
ID can hide in a Persistent Image of a hill and spam Ice Storm. Locate Creature can tell the rogue where the ID is, if it's still active. There's almost nothing he can do against the Ice Storm though, which deals 17 damage per round and will drop the rogue in 6 rounds. 1 round setup casting persistent image means the rogue has 7 rounds to kill the Iron Golem and then find and kill the Gelugon, less if poisoned. But whenever he gets low on hp, the rogue can Step Into Darkness to avoid the Ice Storm and heal back to full with the CSW pots. From the Plane of Shadow he can approach then shift back to start/continue attacking. So IS isn't an effective tactic either, and the Gelugon is stuck with his weapons or ineffective SLAs to defeat the rogue.
Except for Unholy Aura. Rogue saves on an 11, meaning 50% chance to fail _per attack_. 3 sp makes that 6.25%, meaning 9 sp per round. The rogue can do that and SA with 3 sp leftover, and kill the Gelugon in 4 attacks. However, it might be better to play the spring-attacking game with Don't Blink and sink most of his sp into Luck to make absolutely sure Unholy Aura doesn't drain his strength. On the good side, he doesn't really need strength to deal a lot of damage, so he can take the ~2 strength drains before being paralyzed without losing his 4-attack kill.

Likely win.

7. A Rube Goldberg series of contingent weirds triggered to a set of symbols of pain surrounding the artifact.
So we have a bunch of traps around a macguffin. That's the rogue's shtick. DC30 search is easy peasy at this level. Even without Skill Mastery, a luck reroll or 2 ensures the rogue finds and disables the traps, then takes the artifact. A Ingraining Step Into Darkness ensures he won't get caught by the traps either.

And that's assuming the traps have a trigger of "if anyone gets within x ft." If it's Indiana Jones-style, where you have to actually take the artifact, the rogue can just Step Into Darkness with it.

Sure win.

(including one last easy-to-calculate encounter)

8. A forest made out of lava and infested with hostile fire-element dire badgers.
I assume this is a "bypass" challenge rather than a "kill everything" challenge, in which case a potion of fire resistance and the Step Into Darkness make this a sure win. Otherwise, well, the rogue has unhittable AC and some sp for Deflection ensure a negligible chance of any badgers ever dealing damage, whereas the rogue can 1-shot multiple per turn, so it's still a sure win.

Level 15 results: 1 toss up, 4 likely wins, 3 sure wins = 0*1 + 1*4 + 2*3 = 10/8. Very High Balance for sure at this point, but restricted compared to a spontaneous caster, much like a sorcerer, and item-dependant like any other mundane. I still don't think the assumed items include anything out of the ordinary for this level, nor were any of the bought items, but if you disagree let me know.


**or an item filling the same function

In conclusion: This rogue may be high or very-high balance, but it's not tier 1. Tier 2, maybe, since it has a single trick that works on a lot of enemies (Reflexive Combat + Don't Blink + counterattack with SA), perhaps overpoweringly so, and then relies on good purchase of items for the others. I think the spellcaster encounters show that the rogue still has a hard time competing with the wizard, if not a cleric. It seems like I've failed the goals that I originally set out for myself, and that I won't be able to meet them until I do what Yakk suggested and make a bunch of abilities available at each level, just like a spellcaster or initator. That would be awesome, but I think it's too much work for me by myself right now. I'll still try to improve this though, especially to streamline it, and am still interested in comments.

And this message is apparently 2000 characters too long, so the next part goes in the next message.

rockdeworld
2013-06-27, 12:33 AM
Yakk:
"Weapon Finess: When using (FINESS GROUP), you may substitute Str for Dex on attack rolls. When making an attack roll using Dex, you deal an extra 1d6 damage on a hit, +1d6 for every 4 max Savvy points.

Sneak Attack: You can spend 2 Savvy points to add +1d6 sneak attack until your next turn."

So against non-immune creatures we have:
1st level: 1d6 (weapon) + 2d6 (finesse), avg 10.5 (1 sp spent)
6th level: 1d6 (weapon) + dex + 5d6 (finesse) + 1d6 SA, avg 24.5 + dex (6 sp spent)
11th level: 1d6 (weapon) + dex + 5d6 (finesse) + 4d6 SA, avg 35 + dex (12 sp spent)

Against immune creatures we have:
1st level: 1d6 (weapon) + 2d6 (finesse), avg 10.5 (1 sp spent)
6th level: 1d6 (weapon) + dex + 5d6 (finesse) + 0 SA, avg 21 + dex (4 sp spent)
11th level: 1d6 (weapon) + dex + 5d6 (finesse) + 0 SA, avg 21 + dex (4 sp spent)

Whereas with my 1/2 SA system we have against non-immune creatures:
1st level: 1d6 + 1d6 SA, avg 7 (1 sp spent)
6th level: 1d6 + dex + 3d6 SA, avg 14 + dex (3 sp spent)
11th level: 1d6 + dex + 6d6 SA, avg 24.5 + dex (6 sp spent)

And against immune creatures:
1st level: 1d6 + 1d6/2 SA, avg 5.25 (1 sp spent)
6th level: 1d6 + dex + 3d6/2 SA, avg 8.75 + dex (3 sp spent)
11th level: 1d6 + dex + 6d6/2 SA, avg 14 + dex (6 sp spent)

It seems like your system is more complicated but allows for much higher damage with higher SP investment (or less SP against immune creatures), whereas mine gives overall lower damage output but has less sp investment, is simpler, and synergizes better with SA feats. In the interest of simplicity and synergy, I think I'll stick with mine for now.

"It is really, really easy to get lots of +AC. Reflex seems harder."

Arguably it only really kicks in at level 6, when you can replace it with a balance check. Before that it's maybe higher, after that it's almost always, and scales reasonably with level. Maybe I'll move the ability to level 6, but I don't want to since it helped a lot at this level in my SGT.

Edit: it was different then.

"Moving out of turn can allow you to escape a forcecage, if you can move out of turn whenever someone casts a spell where you are in the area of effect, before the effect goes off."

Noted. I still really like Don't Blink, especially because teleporting is awesome, but for now I've changed it to Shift Step, which does what you and a few others have described.

"Sure. Which would make the ability better in an appropriate way, because you require skills to counter it, not just magic or will."

I actually agree with you, and I no longer have problems with Insight giving +a lot to opposed checks, so I've changed it.

"And from that, I could work out the CR of a given creature in the game."

I get what you're saying. 3.5 deals with HD and not CR in general (although I find that to be bad). I've changed it to fit in. It's every 3 HD instead of 2 CR, so it hopefully scales better.

"Suppose you took nearly every ability, and renamed them to Rogue's Tricks. Gave them a level. Said you auto-learn a Trick every level. And you can have "prepared" one Trick of each level. And you can learn additional tricks from other Rogues or find them written down (gold price can be set).

Changing which Trick is prepared might take as little as full round action (long enough not to be able to do it in combat).

Now your Rogue can collect Tricks like a Wizard collects spells."

That's really cool. I like that a lot. It's way more work than I'm willing to put into the rogue right now. But I'd totally join a project with other people doing that.

A quick and dirty fix might be to take the Tome of Prowess (http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Tome_of_Prowess_%283.5e_Sourcebook%29) and make the rank abilities rogue abilites, of which he can have only a few that he qualifies for active at any given time, swapped out with 5 minutes of meditation or something (retraining his muscles, maybe). I haven't fully read BoP, but it seems to have some good stuff.

Yitzi:
"Why limit it to being technically in the area of effect? If we're going for a high-power rogue, why not just give him something like one free standard action per 2 levels per day, which can be used to interrupt someone else's action as if it were readied? Call it "Expert Reflexes" or the like."

See what you think of Shift.

Hanuman:
"So why not have the rogue have an ability, similar to monk's stunning fist usages, which disables a single action as it's being used."

The Tome Fighter (http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Fighter,_Tome_%283.5e_Class%29) already does that (and does it well). Besides, I think the rogue is more about escaping stuff than trying to stop it from happening.

eftexar:
"The class is still probably tier 3 despite system abuses. The large number of abilities you start with is astounding and then it staggers off to a state where the number of abilities waned."

Agreed, except I'd say T2 instead, as I wrote in my thoughts on my SGT. I think most of the abilities scale with level, or are based on something that scales with level, so that having fewer high-level abilities is somewhat mitigated. Am I mistaken? I tried to make it so that every problem I can think of can be solved by a level appropriate rogue.

"Honestly I'm not sure why anyone would want the rogue at tier 1. I could see tier 2 maybe, but wizards are broken so why break more classes to 'fix' the problem?"

I like high-power games and characters that can compete with each other in cool and cinematic ways, like the Vrock vs L10 rogue fight I wrote up in the SGT.

tarkisflux:
"Bumping a rogue to T1 is a somewhat trivial affair if you want to do it with scrolls."

I'm very tempted to put in that +10 UMD change, probably at level 1, or add back in the Insight ability, and Shift covers the other part of that. That would also match pretty much what the 3.5 rogue does right now. I agree that I'd rather find another way to do it though.

And I like that pick-pocket variant!

Savvy Pool: changed.
Underground Contacts: changed.
Reflexive Combat: changed. Also, the rogue can't be flat-footed after level 4, unless I'm mistaken.
Dextrous Will: changed. Is it really broken though?
Disguise Surroundings: changed.
Also see here (tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=334419#334419) for more detailed notes.

"I'm not sure you need to replace it, but an immediate action move action that took effect before the triggering action resolved (so you can move out of AoEs or behind cover or whatever) might be a useful addition."

Yeah, I'm not sure where to go on that one either. The original ability worked off a Hide check (and there was another ability to grant a Hide check on an enemy's missed attack), but I condensed them. For the moment I've included Shift, and the rogue doesn't get teleportation until Step Into Darkness.

tarkisflux
2013-06-27, 02:40 AM
"Suppose you took nearly every ability, and renamed them to Rogue's Tricks. Gave them a level. Said you auto-learn a Trick every level. And you can have "prepared" one Trick of each level. And you can learn additional tricks from other Rogues or find them written down (gold price can be set).

Changing which Trick is prepared might take as little as full round action (long enough not to be able to do it in combat).

Now your Rogue can collect Tricks like a Wizard collects spells."

That's really cool. I like that a lot. It's way more work than I'm willing to put into the rogue right now. But I'd totally join a project with other people doing that.

A quick and dirty fix might be to take the Book of Prowess (http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Tome_of_Prowess_%283.5e_Sourcebook%29) and make the rank abilities rogue abilites, of which he can have only a few that he qualifies for active at any given time, swapped out with 5 minutes of meditation or something (retraining his muscles, maybe). I haven't fully read BoP, but it seems to have some good stuff.

Feel free to grab whatever wording you want from there, should you decide to try to work them in.

And the preferred abbreviation is ToP (as in Tome of Prowess) ;-). If the "Book" thing (if it comes from the thread I think it does) is an unfortunate bit of confusion with the Book or Elements, an unrelated project.



tarkisflux:
"Bumping a rogue to T1 is a somewhat trivial affair if you want to do it with scrolls."

I'm very tempted to put in that +10 UMD change, probably at level 1, or add back in the Insight ability, and Shift covers the other part of that. That would also match pretty much what the 3.5 rogue does right now. I agree that I'd rather find another way to do it though.

And I like that pick-pocket variant!

Savvy Pool: changed.
Underground Contacts: changed.
Reflexive Combat: changed. Also, the rogue can't be flat-footed after level 4, unless I'm mistaken.
Dextrous Will: changed. Is it really broken though?
Disguise Surroundings: changed.

Dextrous will isn't really broken, but it's on a class that already doesn't have a real weak point and has lots and lots of rerolls to make sure that people can't actually take advantage of it anyway. It's just unnecessary over the topness IMO that doesn't help it be versatile or powerful, just annoyingly defensive.


"I'm not sure you need to replace it, but an immediate action move action that took effect before the triggering action resolved (so you can move out of AoEs or behind cover or whatever) might be a useful addition."

Yeah, I'm not sure where to go on that one either. The original ability worked off a Hide check (and there was another ability to grant a Hide check on an enemy's missed attack), but I condensed them. For the moment I've included Shift, and the rogue doesn't get teleportation until Step Into Darkness.

I rather like the look of shift.

Also, insight got moved to the scrapped pile here. I thought it was going back in based on the comments about + a lot to opposed checks?

rockdeworld
2013-06-27, 07:59 AM
Good points Tarkus. And sorry about the ToP/BoP mixup.

Dextrous Will has been dropped. Double Jump and Cover Me have been moved up a level.

I'm not sure this rogue needs Insight. That comment was because I removed it. Does anyone else have any comments about the ability?