A rogue’s schtick is supposed to be giant piles of damage. They hit less well, have less armor and hit points than other melee classes, and have bad Fort and Will saves (the save-or-die ones). In return, when the stars align, a rogue is supposed to dish out the damage.
Well, guess what. They don’t.
Let’s compare a fighter to a rogue. I’m talking straight fighter, no archetypes, two-handed weapon. Heck, I’ll even say our fighter can’t use exotic weapons, even though fighters certainly have the feats available to pick up an exotic weapon proficiency feat. I’ll do comparisons of rogue damage to fighter damage at selected levels. I’m using the Pathfinder 20 point buy with emphasis on physical stats for both builds. Both the fighter and the rogue will be human for the extra feat and will put their stat bump into their primary hitting stat- Str for fighters and Dex for rogues. In this little demonstration, rogues always get their sneak attack damage.
Rogue with rapier/short sword dual-wield
Str 14, Dex 20, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 7
Fighter with greatsword
Str 20, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 7
Level 1 (average opponent AC 15)
Rogue- rapier
Feats: Weapon Finesse, Improved Initiative
Attack: +5 (1d6+2/18-20) + 1d6 sneak
Average damage per hit: 9
Average damage per crit: 14.5
Chance to hit (non-crit): 46.75%
Chance to hit (crit): 8.25%
Average damage per round: 5.4
Fighter- greatsword
Feats: Weapon Focus (Greatsword), Power Attack, Cleave
Attack: +7 (2d6+7/19-20) or +6 (2d6+10/19-20)
Average damage per hit: 14 or 17
Average damage per crit: 28 or 34
Chance to hit (non-crit): 58.5% or 54%
Chance to hit (crit): 6.5% or 6%
Average damage per round: 10 or 11.2
As you can see, fighters on average are doing a ton more damage than rogues. 5.4 damage per round vs. 10 or 11 damage per round.
Well, OK, you might say, but that’s level 1. Rogues don’t have a BAB yet! They only have one measly extra d6! They can’t even two-weapon fight! Surely a more fair low-level comparison is level 3. So let’s look at level 3.
Level 3 (average opponent AC 18)
Rogue- MW rapier, MW short sword
Feats: Weapon Finesse, Improved Initiative, Weapon Focus (rapier)*, Two-Weapon Fighting
Attack: +7/+6 (1d6+2/18-20) + 2d6 sneak, (1d6+1/19-20) + 2d6 sneak
Average damage per hit: 12.5 / 11.5
Average damage per crit: 18 / 16
Chance to hit (non-crit): 42.5% / 40.5%
Chance to hit (crit): 7.5% / 4.5%
Average damage per round: 6.7 + 5.4 = 12.1
Fighter- MW greatsword
Feats: Weapon Focus (Greatsword), Power Attack, Cleave, Furious Focus, Step Up
Attack: +10 (2d6+7/19-20) or +10 (2d6+10/19-20)
Average damage per hit: 14 or 17
Average damage per crit: 28 or 34
Chance to hit (non-crit): 58.5%
Chance to hit (crit): 6.5%
Average damage per round: 10 or 12.2
Rogues have caught up! A two-weapon rogue does as much damage as a two-handing, power-attacking fighter. At level 3, the fighter and rogue are about on par, damage-wise.
What level should we compare them next? Let’s find two levels that’re mid-level, somewhere in the 6-11 range. They shouldn’t advantage fighters. Level 6 is out- fighters get a secondary attack then. Level 7 would be alright; rogues get a sneak attack die and fighters don’t get anything that directly increases their damage. Level 8 fighters get Improved Crit or Improved Weapon Focus, level 9 they get the other feat and weapon training 2. Level 10 they could pick up Crit Focus, but as damage boosts go that isn’t great. Level 11 fighters get a tertiary attack. So let’s look at damage at levels 7 and 10, since those levels seem to advantage fighters the least. At level 7 rogues get that sneak attack die, and at level 10 they have picked up Improved Two-Weapon Fighting as a level 9 feat.
Level 7 (average opponent AC 21)
Rogue- +1 rapier, +1 short sword, belt of incredible dexterity +2, 1 stat bumps Dex (total 23 Dex)
Feats: Weapon Finesse, Improved Initiative, Weapon Focus (rapier)*, Two-Weapon Fighting, Double Slice, Weapon Focus (short sword)
Attack: +11/+11 (1d6+3/18-20) + 4d6 sneak, (1d6+3/19-20) + 4d6 sneak
Average damage per hit: 20.5 / 20.5
Average damage per crit: 27 / 27
Chance to hit (non-crit): 46.75% / 49.5%
Chance to hit (crit): 8.25% / 5.5%
Average damage per round: 11.8 + 11.6 = 23.4
Fighter- +1 greatsword, belt of giant strength +2, 1 stat bumps Str (total 23 Str)
Feats: Weapon Focus (Greatsword), Power Attack, Cleave, Furious Focus, Step Up, Weapon Spec (Greatsword), Following Step, Step Up and Strike, Dodge
Attack: +16/+11 (2d6+13/19-20) or +16/+9 (2d6+19/19-20)
Average damage per hit: 20 or 26
Average damage per crit: 40 or 52
Chance to hit (non-crit): 72% / 49.5% or 72% / 40.5%
Chance to hit (crit): 8% / 5% or 8% / 4.5%
Average damage per round: 17.6 + 12.1 = 29.7 or 22.9 + 12.9 = 35.8
What happened? Rogues are way behind again in damage. They do less damage than the fighter even when the fighter isn’t power attacking.
Well, here’s what’s happening. Rogues hit a lot worse than fighters. A rogue’s damage per hit is right around a fighter’s but ze misses a lot more often. Ze has equal numbers of attacks (2 each) at level 7, but the inequality in damage persists even after rogues pull ahead due to more two weapon fighting feats. I’ll run the rogue numbers with Piranha’s Strike, the Dex equivalent of power attack, to emphasize this point.
Rogue- +1 rapier, +1 short sword, belt of incredible dexterity +2, 1 stat bumps Dex (total 23 Dex)
Feats: Weapon Finesse, Improved Initiative, Weapon Focus (rapier)*, Two-Weapon Fighting, Piranha’s Strike, Weapon Focus (short sword)
Attack: +9/+9 (1d6+7/18-20) + 4d6 sneak, (1d6+4/19-20) + 4d6 sneak
Average damage per hit: 24.5 / 20.5
Average damage per crit: 35 / 29
Chance to hit (non-crit): 38.25% / 40.5%
Chance to hit (crit): 6.75% / 4.5%
Average damage per round: 11.7 + 9.6 = 21.3
As you can see, a rogue using Piranha Strike actually loses damage (23.4 > 21.3). This is because ze misses so much more often. Against exceptionally low AC targets, Piranha Strike might be worth it. Still, it’s probably not worth the feat slot to take, even though it looks like a DPR increase, because of the many occasions in which it would cost a rogue damage.
Now on to level 10. This starts getting trickier- do we go with +2 weapons on the rogue or +1 agile? I’ll run both sets of numbers so we can see that the additional +1 bonus to hit is not worth the damage loss. I’ve given the fighter a +3 weapon because the cost of two +2 weapons is ~16,000 gp and the cost of a +3 weapon is ~18,000 gp.
Level 10 (average opponent AC 25)
Rogue- +1 agile rapier, +1 agile short sword, belt of incredible dexterity +4, 2 stat bumps Dex (total 26 Dex)
Feats: Weapon Finesse, Improved Initiative, Weapon Focus (rapier)*, Two-Weapon Fighting, Double Slice**, Weapon Focus (short sword), Improved Two Weapon Fighting
Attack: +15/+15/+10/+10 (1d6+9/18-20) + 5d6 sneak, (1d6+9/19-20) + 5d6 sneak
Average damage per hit: 30 / 30
Average damage per crit: 42.5 / 42.5
Chance to hit (non-crit): 46.75% / 49.5% / 25.5% / 27%
Chance to hit (crit): 8.25% / 5.5% / 5.5% / 3%
Average damage per round: 17.5 + 17.2 + 9.6 + 9.4 = 53.7
Rogue- +2 rapier, +2 short sword, belt of incredible dexterity +4, 2 stat bumps Dex (total 26 Dex)
Feats: Weapon Finesse, Improved Initiative, Weapon Focus (rapier)*, Two-Weapon Fighting, Double Slice**, Weapon Focus (short sword), Improved Two Weapon Fighting
Attack: +16/+16/+11/+11 (1d6+4/18-20) + 5d6 sneak, (1d6+4/19-20) + 5d6 sneak
Average damage per hit: 25 / 25
Average damage per crit: 32.5 / 32.5
Chance to hit (non-crit): 51% / 54% / 29.75% / 31.5%
Chance to hit (crit): 9% / 6% / 5.25% / 3.5%
Average damage per round: 15.7 + 15.5 + 9.1 + 9.0 = 49.3
Fighter- +3 greatsword, belt of giant strength +4, 2 stat bumps Str (total 26 Str)
Feats: Weapon Focus (Greatsword), Power Attack, Cleave, Furious Focus, Step Up, Weapon Spec (Greatsword), Following Step, Step Up and Strike, Dodge, Improved Weapon Focus (Greatsword), Improved Critical (Greatsword), Critical Focus
Attack: +25/+20 (2d6+19/17-20) or +25/+17 (2d6+28/17-20)
Average damage per hit: 26 or 35
Average damage per crit: 52 or 70
Chance to hit (non-crit): 76% / 61% or 76% / 48%
Chance to hit (crit): 19% / 19% or 19% / 17%
Average damage per round: 29.6 + 25.7 = 55.3 or 39.9 + 28.7 = 68.6
*Weapon Focus is from the Weapon Training rogue trick
**I’m letting Double Slice interact with agile in the most beneficial way for rogues, adding full Dex to damage with the offhand weapon. There are RAW arguments to be made either way but this is all about using best-case scenarios for rogue damage.
I’m not going to keep going. The damage gap keeps growing bigger the higher level you go, and as gear choices get more complicated it gets impossible to run all the alternatives. Rogues can get a sword of subtlety or at really high levels, a sun blade. Fighters can pick up gloves of dueling. The point of all this is that rogue damage never even meets fighter damage, let alone exceeds it, even when everything works to let rogues get a full attack with sneak attack. Remember, when the stars align, rogues are supposed to dish out massive amounts of damage to compensate for their weaker hit bonus and survivability and only-sometimes damage ability.
They don’t.
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