Rogue 2.0

[Miryafa]

Just a point of fact. You have something that scores better than a Wizard on the SGT, and your solution was to give it more powerful abilities and not to nerf it.

Say what? I was under the impression that the wizard scored better, and in every scenario I found myself thinking "of course, a wizard would just solve it with [x]". And it likely lost in the direct confrontations with wizards.

What makes you say it scores better than the wizard on the SGT?

Edit: in addition, I made every change that you suggested, decreased the number of savvy points available at every level after 6, outright removed a few abilities and changed many others. Why do you post this?

[Kaelik]

What makes you say it scores better than the wizard on the SGT?

The Wizard scores about 60% on the SGT. This class won 70% at level 5, 62% at level 10, and 87% at level 15. And of those very small percentages of non wins, most of them are toss ups.

That is much better than the Wizard.

Edit: in addition, I made every change that you suggested, decreased the number of savvy points available at every level after 6, outright removed a few abilities and changed many others. Why do you post this?

Yes. And then you tested that version, and it scored way too high on the SGT, and then you added new abilities to buff it. If you thought it needed buffs at high levels after 100%ing the SGT at level 15.

[Foxwarrior]

I think many would be educated if you illustrated this 60%, Kaelik.

[Miryafa]

I think many would be educated if you illustrated this 60%, Kaelik.

Agreed. I now know the percentages thanks to you, and am interested in seeing the wizard's SGT data.

Also, it's good to hear what's overpowered about the class, because I can just remove it. Ideally, I think I'd like to get this down to something like the Tome Fighter with 1 ability per level, or the Tome Soldier who has a few at 1st and then 1/level, but the Ninja's progression might be okay if it looks decent.

[TarkisFlux]

I think it's SGT stuff has dropped a bit actually, given the large drop in SP and the removal of the "miss me and I get to move" ability. There's still combos in there like "miss me and I get to SA you, and I can make you miss me", but those aren't a particularly big deal since they just mitigate Blink dependence.

I somehow missed that Step Into Darkness doesn't specify a hide DC. Since succeeding at a hide check just means beating an opposed spot check otherwise (which may be 0 if no one is looking), you may want to instead specify that they can't do it while observed by anyone other than the participants. That covers the hide check part, since you could just hide from non-participants and then complete the action unobserved. If you still wanted a check as part of it you could add a fixed DC hide check that they have to pass anyway.

Still pondering the ingenuity stuff, but had a few comments on some of the other new things.

[*]Worm In is weird because it eliminate bonuses from Magic Vestment and Barkskin, but not from items that grant the same bonuses. Since flask rogues are a thing and attacking touch AC is already easy (even with deflection bonuses), picking either armor or natural armor bonuses to ignore with the ability might be a better call (and reduces your wand dependence).

[*]Thief's Eye should probably not reveal the presence of things if you fail your checks / saves against all of them. Granting an instant check / save against everything within range (and it needs a range, I'd recommend 60'-120' because tactical movement) as a 1 SP free action is already pretty good.

[*]Hypersavvy should probably just get removed. It's not so much that it's over the top, though it is, as that you don't need anything it offers in order to be effective. And since you don't spend SP on some of those spell effects, you can't even do some of the things it says you can.

[*]You currently grant 6 special abilities, and have exactly 6 written. Given that those are abilities per level and you want to get the class down to 1 per level, you may want to move a bunch of the new things into the special ability list. Formlessness, Dissever, Worm In, and Thief's Eye seem basically fine at level 10+, so dropping them into the list instead of automatically granting them might help you get down to your desired ability progression while differentiating individual rogues further.

All of the special abilities should maybe have an SP cost, like 1 per use (or per round in the case of mind blank). You have an increasingly large pool of SP to spend, may as well push some resource management IMO.

[Miryafa]

I think it's SGT stuff has dropped a bit actually, given the large drop in SP and the removal of the "miss me and I get to move" ability.

Good point. I forgot to mention in my last post that "that version" was before I made the changes that dropped SP after level 6, outright removed a bunch of abilities, and changed many others.

Step Into Darkness: I had some trouble understanding all that. Ideally I'd like to give the rogue the ability to use this basically at any time he needs it, as utility or offensively, so he could use Cover Me and this, or find some shadows and use this, or maybe even just pull a cloak/curtain around himself and use this (like a magician), eg when trapped in a Forcecage. Are the mechanics broken right now? Is it brokenly powerful?

Worm In: Worm In definitely is wierd, in part because the original idea I had for it was to deny illusory defences like Displacement and Mirror Image (and Blink, even though that's Transmutation). Then I just took the text from the Tome Samurai's Deny Caster Defences since it was already like what I wanted, but stripping natural armor is perhaps better, and I like it. BUT! I want to give the rogue something more to fight spellcasters, so I think maybe a way to dispel those defences would be better, especially since it fits in with what I'm starting to think of as the "situationally useful" requirement for Special Abilities (as opposed to "always useful" abilities, which should be main class features). If I understand correctly, Abj/Conj will increase a Wizard's AC, Ench/Necro give extra HP, Evoc creates barriers like Wind Wall and the Hand spells, Div does nothing defensively, and Illus/Trans are the real winners at high levels with the aforementioned plus polymorphing. I'd like to give the rogue the ability to kill those Illus/Trans spells, but I'd like to give that to everyone, so maybe it should be a feat instead (like the +11 ability of Mage Slayer). I'll just stick with the armor/NA thing for now, since that also fits in with the rogue theme of getting through tough defenses for the stab. Changed.

On the note of special abilities, those from the 3.5 rogue are still available, I just haven't copied them here. In particular I assume rogues will go for Skill Mastery with Balance, or somesuch.

Thief's Eye: Huh, it pretty much grants what I wanted from Worm In now (except against Blink/Mirror Image). Changed.

Hypersavvy: Gone. Good points.

Dissever: I was actually thinking this should probably be a special ability or feat when I made it because of its situational use. You've confirmed it for me. Changed. The other 3 have also been made special abilities, and the rogue now has at most 2 abilities per level except levels 1 and 3, with fewer at high levels (is that a good thing?).

Special Abilities in general: Changed to include sp costs. The rogue now has massive Resource management at high levels. But if he's started at level 1, he's probably used to it. Either way, it drops his SGT results a bit while still hopefully keeping up with the wizard (in a different way).

Also, Slip Behind was renamed to Counterattack for clarity.

Question: would one of these rogues with Thief's Eye and Mind Blank be a match for a wizard at level 15? Even without those 2?

[TarkisFlux]

Step Into Darkness: I had some trouble understanding all that. Ideally I'd like to give the rogue the ability to use this basically at any time he needs it, as utility or offensively, so he could use Cover Me and this, or find some shadows and use this, or maybe even just pull a cloak/curtain around himself and use this (like a magician), eg when trapped in a Forcecage. Are the mechanics broken right now? Is it brokenly powerful?

Just regular broken, as in "doesn't work", because succeeding on a hide check doesn't mean anything. I just realized that you can kidnap people with it if you want to fight them one-on-one or whatever, and I'm not sure that's intentional. It's also weird that the spell requires a standard action and the ability doesn't. Actually, here, try this wording instead:

At 13th level, a rogue learns how to walk the paths of darkness and may mimic the effects of Shadow Walk. This requires a standard action and has a caster level equal to the rogue's class level. The rogue and all other willing participants must be hidden or otherwise unobserved to begin the shadow walk. Unwilling and unaware targets <choose one:>
[*]may not be affected.
[*]may make a Will saving throw, DC 10 + 1/2 the rogue's HD + his Cha modifier, to avoid being dragged along.

Question: would one of these rogues with Thief's Eye and Mind Blank be a match for a wizard at level 15? Even without those 2?

Um, yes. Ignoring for the moment that they don't need to be (they just need to be more than a match for a representative sample of EL 15 encounters), they will already by 'underground' and basically immune from teleport ambushes that aren't triggered by traps (which they have other ways of dealing with). If they get into a straight fight with a wiz, either Dextrous Fort or Dextrous Will combined with their non-bullshit touch AC means that the wizard will likely need to rely on no-save, no attack spells to deal with them. He doesn't really have an answer to non-interacting illusions, but against things like forcecage and solid fog the rogue just whips out his immediate action move to just leave the AoE or at-will shadow walk and flees. And if he instead took dissever, he can beat up on summoned / raised / crafted anythings that happen to be hanging around with the wizard. He has similar stuff against clerics or druids, but probably wants stab essence to prevent healing.

All you need is one round of TWF stabbing and the caster is likely down, and there's a few ways to get up close and hold them off until that happens. So while you probably can't deal with any possible wizard at 15, you have a few viable builds to deal with (or successfully flee from) quite a lot of them.

[Miryafa]

That wording for Step Into Darkness looks good, and I've added it with minor editing to sound more like the rogue's other abilities.

So while you probably can't deal with any possible wizard at 15, you have a few viable builds to deal with (or successfully flee from) quite a lot of them.

Thanks for the analysis. That sounds like the "just right" level to be at. If a rogue that isn't specifically setup to beat a wizard can win about 50% of the time against a wizard that isn't specifically setup to beat a rogue, that satisfies my unwritten goal of the rogue competing with the wizard, and that's what it sounds like from your analysis. So except for any badly-written or accidentally broken abilities, and barring a bad SGT, I'd say this rogue is done and ready for play-testing.

Edit: Now on dnd-wiki here: http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Rogue_2.0_(3.5e_Class)

Edit 2: what is up with the url tag?