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Any D&D/D20

Shadowrun

World of Darkness

Palladium

Other (feel free to post about it)

[SOLDIER First]

I don't see many situations where high Strength would be especially useful for a Rogue (but this is coming from my sleep-deprived self at 1 am EST, so..)
Carry weight is an issue? Load some gear onto the Paladin; they won't mind.
Thinking you might be climbing/swimming/etc often? Athletics proficiency.
Not a lot of damage getting through? You're not a damage class anyway.

@HM: Looks pretty cool.

[BlackFlyme]

Wait, aren't we still talking about having Dex-to-damage here with the Unchained Rogue?

A Rogue will probably get most of their damage output from their Sneak Attack dice anyhow.

[Neonivek]

Wait, aren't we still talking about having Dex-to-damage here with the Unchained Rogue?

No we are talking about why Unchained rogues have the "Dex-to-damage" ability.

And I am saying it is because Rogues actually are overall better off going strength as their main instead of dexterity.

While the argument against that idea is that Rogues are in fact not better off going strength and their true talents lie with dexterity.

So we are going back and forth with our points.

[SOLDIER First]

If you aren't playing a Stealth-y Rogue
1. Mistake or
2. Different archetype

[BlackFlyme]

With all their skills, they could be anything. They just need to find a way to get their Sneak Attacks in. Flanking isn't just for sneaky people, feinting is more about skill than sneakiness, and there are plenty of ways to make opponents flat-footed, such as the Shatter Defences feat, allowing even an intimidating brute to still be effective.

[Jimmy]

It's a trade-off for Rogues. In comparison to a Fighter, a standard Rogue (not Unchained) gets the majority of their melee damage bonus from Sneak Attack. Remember, each Sneak Attack die is worth an average of 3.5 extra damage, comparable to increasing your Strength by 7 points. Imagine if a Fighter got an extra 7 points of Strength every 2 levels! Of course, this is only for damage, and doesn't help with their low BAB. It's also situational and requires flanking or denying the opponent their Dex to AC.

To get the most from their bonus damage, they want to have as high a chance to hit as possible. Usually this is either through increasing Strength, with a corresponding increase in bonus damage, or increasing Dexterity and adding Weapon Finesse. The Dexterity route adds to your AC, Reflex saves and Initiative too, all great things for a Rogue. By comparison, a few extra points of damage in melee is a poor trade when you're throwing out massive amounts of d6 damage already. In short, Dexterity to hit is the preferred option for a Rogue, with the Thug Rogue being secondary from a purely mechanical perspective.

[Neonivek]

Your acting like a strength rogue loses out on sneak attack damage.

A strength rogue gets it all. If a Strength rogue wants to be a sneaky SOB, he easily can.

Can I have a "Taking this personally" check? I have a feeling this is getting heated.

[highmax28]

I kind of have to side with the fact a rogue with strength does work better than a pure dex rogue.

Not only does the standard damage increase, but it also means the ability to carry more garbage that you steal from random people.

They also get the benfit of climb checks with strength, which is fantastic. I had a game where climb checks were big because boats, mountains, etc. but it would depend on DM for that.

And I would much rather have a rogue with some strength and a decent dex than have a rogue with fantastic dex and piss poor strength.

And whats the ruling on weapons that can use sneak attack damage? I forgot

I don't see many situations where high Strength would be especially useful for a Rogue (but this is coming from my sleep-deprived self at 1 am EST, so..)
Carry weight is an issue? Load some gear onto the Paladin; they won't mind.
Thinking you might be climbing/swimming/etc often? Athletics proficiency.
Not a lot of damage getting through? You're not a damage class anyway.

@HM: Looks pretty cool.

Thanks. Mostly wanting to know if I went a bit over the top with anything

[Neonivek]

Specifically Rogues can do sneak attack damage with any weapon, so long as he does it within 30 feet.

It is tough, but you can make legitimate ranged rogues (I love them! even if it requires good team co-ordination to pull off... or a DM who fudges sneak rolls for ducking out of cover to attack)

Ohh well ducking out of the argument, payment is too high

[BlackFlyme]

For Pathfinder, you get your Sneak Attack when you attack a character that is Flat-Footed, or otherwise denied their Dexterity to AC, and when you are flanking an opponent. There are a few archetypes that change it up, such as the Scout, which can Sneak Attack so long as they move at least 10 feet before attacking. You can Sneak Attack with any weapon. There is a Rogue talent and an archetype to increase the range you can Sneak Attack at. Also the Slayer's Sniper archetype.

A base Rogue benefits more from Strength. At least until you can afford an Agile-enchanted weapon. An Unchained Rogue pretty much revolves around Dex starting at level 3, when they get Dex to damage instead of Strength for a finesse-weapon of their choice. If you choose a finesse-weapon that can be held in two hands, such as the Estoc, the Elven Curved Blade, or the Elven Branched Spear, then you can get Dex-and-a-half to damage. Which is weird, which is part of why the Unchained Rogue is banned by this DM.

[Arcvasti]

A strength rogue gets it all.

Strength gives a bonus to damage and to-hit. Dexterity gives a bonus to various other useful things that rouges like as well as to-hit. A strength rouge gets better consistent damage and better Climb and Swim checks[Which, granted, are quite useful for some thiefy stuff]. A dex rouge gets better defenses[AC + Reflex] and initiative, as well as better other skills. Dex rouge does have one major advantage: Ranged sneak attacks. Preliminary research[There's probably SOME way to change this, but I can't find it] indicates that you can ONLY use dexterity to get extra to-hit on ranged weapons. Since Dex also gives a bonus to initiative and you can sneak attack flat-footed people, a dex rouge can launch a pretty robust alpha strike from 30 ft away while strength rouges[Or even melee dex rouges] have to waste their move getting within melee range instead of full attacking.


FAKEEDIT: Well, most of my points have been ninjaed. TLDR is that dex/strength really just give different feels to the class[Synergy with class abilities vs compensating for class weaknesses] and that dex is straight-up better for ranged rouges. Both still mostly suck vs constructs or undead[Strength less so, though].

DOUBLEFAKEEDIT: This post was written with 3.5e in mind. I'm not as familiar with Pathfinder, although I do own the Core Rulebook[Which I should really look into sometime].

[highmax28]

I would probably ban it too, honestly. Then again, I'm a DM who likes to see teams who aren't min maxed to hell and back. I'm currently playing one and forced to play one after that campaign because the rules lawyer player has made the game so unplayable for anyone who does because the DM scales to that player and not the rest of the party.

I'm not even joking. Our party fought a dracolich at level 9 with 5 party members. And it was dead in 4 turns. How? The party has an eldritch godling who can channel positive and negative energy better than a cleric can and managed to nuke the dracolich after three turns of charging to almost half his HP.

On turn 2, I did 256 fire damage being a kineticist and scoring a double crit. On my fourth turn, I did 64 damage and dropped the enemy since it takes me two turns to charge up and unload a blast at the enemy and NOT kill myself in the process. It's not fun anymore because I literally would walk into a room and an enemy would appear and I would insta kill it by doing 115 damage to it before it gets a chance to react. I ended up torching illusions of a guy's dad, the rule's lawyers character's mom, some guy's mentor, a guy who made magical nukes, and this guy who I killed when I got possessed by putting a gun to his head and firing.

And then comes the rules lawayer's one-off game where he DMs the final part of his character's storyline where we fight his brothers. Everything is legitimately made as a possible PC, and what happens? We're fighting two level 20 summoners, one of which has an eidolon that's essentially a kraken, and the other spams little dudes and redirects my fire at my flammable allies. All 115 damage from a maximized and empowered hit without critical strikes. It's not fun because it's me, the rules lawyer and the enemy dropping damage in the 100's, and everyone he made has an AC of 30+, and his eldritch godling has a charisma score of 47 AND CAN INSTA KILL EVERYONE WITH A NEGATIVE ENERGY BLAST. And he doesn't care he's already accidentally killed a player. The only reason I'm able to do anything is because my ungodly amount of damage attacks target touch AC. And somehow, it seems I'm the only one who can do that, since the godling is sitting around charging her energy for 10 rounds to do something and not trying to heal anything (this is his cohort, so she's level 9 or something), the guys actual character is dead because I blasted his face off when my blast redirected at him, and no one else can possibly do anything except the gunslinger who's got two revolvers that are only good because he's supposed to be the GM's (the REAL GM) character who helps us in combat.

I said it before and I'll say it again: I hate min-maxed characters and this is why...

[BlackFlyme]

Meanwhile, we are playing a Gestalted Mythic campaign. We are way OP even without optimization.

Mythic Champions basically get an extra move action at Tier 3 with Fleet Warrior, which allows you to make a Full-Attack-Action, while still being allowed to move up to their speed before or after.

I'm just wondering if their are any silly class combinations that would still work well mechanically. My Kineticist's Barbarian half isn't that great. Not much would go well with a Kineticist though, due to their playstyle.

[Neonivek]

What is the main stat of a Kineticist?

[BlackFlyme]

Dex to hit with their Kinetic Blasts and for some ability DCs, and Con for their blast's damage and for the rest of their DCs. If they go melee with Kinetic Blade, Whip, or Fist, they will need Strength to hit if they don't have Weapon Finesse, though they will still use Con for damage.

The playstyle will vary depending on their Element choices and their Infusion choices. Infusions either alter the form of the blast, for example, turning the single-target blast into a cone, or it may add rider effects, such as an Earth blast Entangling the target.

I don't have the attributes to be a mental-based Caster.