Fighter Vs Rogue

"You like me because I'm a scoundrel. There aren't enough scoundrels in your life."


I hate this argument. Well, that's not true. I hate not knowing the answer for sure. I'm talking about rogue damage versus fighter damage, something that's been discussed ever since 3.0 came out. Honestly, I never seemed to hear this one back in the days of the backstab multiplier in 1.0 and 2.0, but as soon as sneak attack became 1/2 level in D6es, this has cropped up over and over. This is also probably the biggest target of armchair game balancing, with GMs using house rules like denying rogues their iterative attacks if they use sneak attack. I don't agree with that, but I've always wanted to do this research, so here we go. Here's some ground rules first.

Oh, and if you're from my guild and this is your first time, welcome! Here's a shitload of theorycrafting and math! Maybe uh...maybe skim through the backlog, find a better post, and call that your first one.

We're comparing at level 1, 6, 11 and 16. This means the fighter will be "up" one iterative attack in all circumstances. Outside of a few level ranges(such as 8, 9, 10) this is virtually always the case anyway. This does mean there are a few levels where rogue damage will be closer or even ahead due to the nature of base attack bonus.

I'm condensing the stats. I feel like presenting the stats fully the last time we did a comparison just made for a shitty looking blog filled with essentially unnecessary info. We were making an "all things considered" comparison then, though, so I probably didn't have a choice. We won't be listing every feat or piece of gear, just the relevant ones. We will be talking about the nature of scaling with feats later, though.

The stat spread is 18, 16, 14, 14, 12, 10 distributed intelligently. They're both human. The fighter is a 2h greatsword build and the rogue will be using a rapier. We'll talk about rogues using TWF later.

I'm not factoring in critical hits. They're a big x-factor I'm not sure how to math out, and I already know they're in favor of the fighter: Sneak attack damage isn't multiplied, and fighters have plenty of feats and BAB to take crit monkey feats if they want. Rogues have less an option and, because of their weapon choice, don't benefit nearly as much from a critical hit. The fighter will have better critical hits, even if he's a build that uses a rapier.

The rogue won't be taking powerful sneak, but he will be taking rogue talents relevant to damage. I just wanted to state overall that powerful sneak isn't worth taking, and I won't be making a bad decision building our rogue just because it's related to sneak attack.

I'm going to do some basic research into appropriate CR enemies and pick one with an average AC for its CR. I'll tell you which one it is, but keep in mind it's just an example and we're not talking about things like DR. Rogues do have disadvantages against certain monsters, but we'll be talking about that below after our comparison test.

The fighter should 'win' overall. Simply put, rogue gets more variation, more skills and more utility than fighter. Fighter is dedicated toward combat and should be overall better at it than rogue.

But the fighter might not win in every situation. Rogue is a 3/4ths AB class, but it's certainly more of a combat class than something like Bard.

@}-,-'--

Punch, Level 1 Fighter
STR 20 DEX 14 CON 16 INT 14 WIS 12 CHA 10
BAB: +1
Relevant Abilities: Weapon Focus, Power Attack
Relevant Equipment: a greatsword he found in a dumpster

Attack: +7 // 2d6+7 // 9-19, average 14
-->With Power Attack: +6 //  2d6+10 // 12-22 average 17

-~-~-

Judy, Level 1 Rogue
STR 10 DEX 20 CON 16 INT 14 WIS 12 CHA 14
BAB: +0
Relevant Abilities: Weapon Focus, Finesse Training, Sneak Attack 1d6
Relevant Equipment: a rapier stolen from a hobo

Attacks: +6 // 1d6+1d6 // 2-12 average 7


Our Monster: Huggermugger, AC 15
Punch's hit chances: 65%
--> With Power Attack: 60%
Judy's hit chances: 60%

No surprise here. Neither class really has its relevant abilities yet, sneak attack is a mere 1d6, and the entire point of a two handed build is that it starts early. Unchained Rogue can start to really compete at level three, where it gets its second rank of Finesse Training.


@}-,-'--

Punch, Level 6 Fighter
STR 21(23) DEX 14 CON 16 INT 14 WIS 12 CHA 10
BAB: +6/+1
Relevant Abilities: Weapon Focus, Power Attack, Weapon Specialization, Weapon Training 1
Relevant Equipment: +2 Greatsword, Belt of Giant Strength +2

Attacks: +16/+11 // 2d6+14 // 16-26 average 21
-->With Power Attack: +14/+9 // 2d6+20 // 22-32 average 27

-~-~-

Judy, Level 6 Rogue
STR 10 DEX 21(23) CON 16 INT 14 WIS 12 CHA 14
BAB: +4
Relevant Abilities: Weapon Focus, Finesse Training, Bleeding Attack, Debilitating Injury(-4), Sneak Attack +3d6
Relevant Equipment: +2 Rapier, Belt of Incredible Dexterity +2

Attacks: +13 // 1d6+8+3d6+3 // 15-35 average 25


Our Monster: Mi-Go, AC 20
Punch's hit chances: 85% / 60%
-->With Power Attack: 75% / 50%
Judy's hit chances: 70%
-->With Debilitating Injury: 90%

Another one that's probably not surprising. Punch will certainly be dealing about 27 damage, and in an average round will be dealing around 54. Judy can count on Debilitating Injury now and in the future, since it only drops if she whiffs an entire round of attacks, but with it will certainly be dealing about 25 damage. Note that I'm counting Bleeding Attack as damage, but it doesn't stack with itself. Thus, it only deals its damage once per round and never starts "rolling" to become even more. If Punch is unlucky and only hits with one attack, or needs to move, their damage will look quite similar.


@}-,-'--

Punch, Level 11 Fighter
STR 22(28) DEX 14 CON 16 INT 14 WIS 12 CHA 10
BAB: +11/+6/+1
Relevant Abilities: Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Weapon Training 2
Relevant Equipment: +4 Greatsword, Belt of Giant Strength +6

Attacks: +28/+23/+18 // 2d6+21 // 23-33 average 28
-->With Power Attack: +25/+20/+15 // 2d6+30 // 32-42 average 37

-~-~-

Judy, Level 11 Rogue
STR 10 DEX 22(28) CON 16 INT 14 WIS 12 CHA 14
BAB +8/+3
Relevant Abilities: Weapon Focus, Finesse Training, Bleeding Attack, Debilitating Injury(-6), Sneak Attack +6d6
Relevant Equipment: +4 Rapier, Belt of Incredible Dexterity +6

Attacks: +22/+17 // 1d6+13+6d6+6 // 26-61 Average 43


Our Monster: Stone Golem, AC 26
Punch's hit chances: 95% / 90% / 65%
-->With Power Attack: 95% / 75% / 50%
Judy's hit chances: 85% / 60%
-->With Debilitating Injury: 95% / 90%

As we go up in level, damage seems to swing toward the rogue at first glance. However, the fighter will be doing an average of 111 damage if he hits with all his attacks(Which is likely), and the rogue will be striking for 86 if he hits with all of his. However, a single hit for the rogue is more valuable, and his damage is more random: It could be quite a lot higher if he gets lucky. As usual, he also proves more mobile due to a single strike hitting harder on average than the two handed fighter. Thanks to Unchained Rogue's debilitating injury, his hit chances are far higher than his attack bonus suggests.


@}-,-'--

Punch, Level 16 Fighter
STR 24(30) DEX 14 CON 16 INT 14 WIS 12 CHA 10
BAB: +16/+11/+6/+1
Relevant Abilities: Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Specialization, Weapon Training 3
Relevant Equipment: +4 Flaming Burst Vicious Greatsword, Belt of Giant Strength +6, Gloves of Dueling(+2/+2)

Attacks: +37/+32/+27/+22 // 2D6+28+1d6+2d6 // 33-58 average 45
-->With Power Attack: +32/+27/+22/+17 // 2d6+43+1d6+2d6 // 48-73 average 60

-~-~-

Judy, Level 16 Rogue
STR 10 DEX 24(30) CON 16 INT 14 WIS 12 CHA 14
BAB +12/+7/+2
Relevant Abilities: Weapon Focus, Finesse Training, Bleeding Attack, Debilitating Injury(-8), Sneak Attack +8d6
Relevant Equipment: +5 Flaming Burst Rapier, Belt of Incredible Dexterity +6

Attacks: +27/+22/+17 // 1d8+15+8d6+8 // 32-79 average 55


Our Monster: Cornugon, AC 35
Punch's hit chances: 95%/90%/65%/40%
-->With Power Attack: 90%/65%/40%/15%
Judy's hit chances: 65%/40%/15%
--.With Debilitating Injury: 95%/80%/50%

Please note before I go any further that AC starts to vary wildly at higher CRs. Monsters get more complex and you start seeing more "casters" or monsters with other forms of protection. As for AC, I saw values as low as 30 and as high as 39. Monsters tend to vary more in general at this point and it's a bit harder to gauge what challenge we're looking at.

In an average round, Punch is going to be doing 120 damage if he uses power attack, with strong potential for more, especially if him and Judy are in the same party: Flanking will be a +2, and her Debilitating Injury will be another 2 points in most situations. Judy will certainly deal 110 in an average round, with her damage varying pretty wildly based on if the dice like her or not. She has potential to beat Punch's damage in an average round, even if he doesn't roll poorly. She also has a large potential to underperform compared to him, and Punch also has less need to be lucky, since most of his damage comes from flat bonuses. He's also able to buy weapons with lower numerical bonuses in exchange for extra damage abilities, thanks to the gloves of dueling and his overall really high attack bonuses.

If they hit with all of their attacks, Punch's average round will be 240, and Judy's will be 165. If Punch doesn't hit his final iterative attack(which he probably won't a lot of the time) his damage still beats hers on average at 180. Power Attack lets Punch leverage his high attack bonuses, and a different build(one less focused on damage) would have to beat Judy in other ways, such as defense, combat options, or maneuvers. If it's the kind of fighter that's only swinging with a one handed weapon, Judy's going to beat them in terms of raw damage.


@}-,-'--


I feel like I mostly made my point, but we did find out some interesting stuff. Before we get to all of our neat findings, I want to talk a lot about the thing I left out. I left it out partly because I knew I didn't have to include it to prove that rogue damage will lag slightly behind a fighter, and partly because how often this thing comes up is something that depends heavily on your GM.

Let's talk about points of failure. Punch and Judy both share some situations where their damage could be lowered or negated: Things like damage reduction, flying enemies, clever positioning or being disarmed. However, due to the nature of Rogue, Judy has several points of failure Punch doesn't. Let's go over them.

She needs to flank or attack a flat-footed opponent. Flanking will be 90% of what she does here, and this is less of a restriction than a lot of people think. Judy might end up moving more often, but even a party of average intelligence will be moving in concert with her to allow her to shred multiple opponents. It'll come up in some fights that she just can't get to a flanked opponent, but mostly, this one isn't a huge deal.


Uncanny Dodge makes Sneak Attack Basically impossible. Most games see enemies with class levels at least a few times. Classes with Uncanny Dodge make it very hard to get sneak attack off by limiting you to Feint, which never really works well in the first place. In most situations facing an Uncanny Dodge foe, you're just going to end up losing Sneak Attack. You can overcome it by having 4 more levels in a Sneak Attack providing class, but if you're fighting a fair challenge, they're either going to be weenies, and thus your sneak attack damage matters a lot less anyway, or you're not going to be 4 or more levels higher than them.

She can not use sneak attack on a target with concealment. This can mean anything from poor lighting to the blur spell. There is a feat that gets around this called Shadow Strike, which Judy will probably be taking if she's serious about being a combat rogue. That and things like darkvision are your only way around it, and a rogue without Shadow Strike may find themselves asking the party mage to dispel buffs for him.

Things immune to critical hits are immune to precision damage. This means Elementals, Swarms, Oozes, and Incorporeal enemies if she doesn't have a ghost touch weapon. I find these don't really come up that often in games, but you never know. The GM might even toss these at the party especially because they're immune to sneak attack.

Things with Fast Healing or Regeneration will basically negate Debilitating Injury. You saw that a lot of Judy's "To hit bonus" actually comes from Debilitating Injury. It requires her to keep hitting the target, and it means her primary round might be weak if she can't get that first hit off, but it's not a huge deal. However, any amount of healing removes debilitating injury. This means that if she's fighting something with Fast Healing or Regeneration, debilitating injury will be removed at the beginning of their round, and Judy essentially has to take her "opening round" again, hoping to hit with her primary attack to assist her iterative attacks.


It's easy to forget how many ways a rogue loses their damage. Really, even if a GM doesn't really care about varying his enemies, there will be times where Judy just simply can't get to a flanked enemy and ends up losing a lot of damage. It'll happen. In games where the GM uses a lot of different types of enemies, it'll come up where she underperforms compared to Punch. Ideally, this is countered by situations where she can sneak ahead and soften up an upcoming fight with subterfuge or stealthy killing.

So what did we learn today? Well, we learned how important Debilitating Injury is. In most situations, it floats the rogue's hit chances up to where Fighter's are, and leaves their sole difference being lacking that extra attack. We also learned that Rogue's damage probably got a reputation for being ultra sick based on people getting lucky rolls. At higher levels, Rogue's minimum and maximum damage start to differ a ton. It's easy to notice the party rogue dealing a lot of damage and forget to take into account how good he's rolling that night. You're not looking at his dice, after all.

It was also way closer than I thought it'd be. There are levels where the Rogue even wins out, and if the fighter goes for a lower damage build like TWF or shield defensive feats, the Rogue will win consistently. This is partly due to the fact that "Two Handed Power Attack" is the only great way to build for pure damage due to the pre-reqs and required feats of Two Weapon Fighting. One handed builds don't have much in the way of damage boosts, are obviously going to lose to the Rogue, who's a one handed build but with a ton of D6es added. Fighters built toward things like Shields or Maneuvers obviously have advantages over the Rogue...but damage isn't going to be one of them.


One final note. I promised we'd talk about Two Weapon Fighting, and here we are. In general, TWF builds are not good at dealing pure damage: it can potentially outdamage to a two handed build, but it's not that much better. Additionally, it's a huge amount of feats and requirements compared to the two handed build being almost completely universal. TWF and its brutal pre-reqs either need a way around them(Ranger, Slayer) or a way to build for dex to damage without relying on Slashing Grace, like Rogue. It's a very taxing build that's best for spamming people with combat maneuvers, or getting a bit of extra damage out of your shield. If you're looking for raw damage, two-handed characters do pretty well with just one feat, Power Attack. In Pathfinder, this is still quite a great feat, but if you're playing 3.X? Hoo boy.

Unchained Rogue is one of the only places this really works as a pure damage build. Debilitating Injury is necessary for its success. For the (low low) price of a lot of feats, Rogue can deal damage that matches, or maybe even surpasses the Fighter. This is because they get Sneak Attack on every qualifying attack, and that raises the value of things like off-hand attacks, secondary natural attacks, or speed weapons. In addition to that, Rogues already build Dex primarily, so they don't need to stretch their build to take Two Weapon Fighting.

But you're reliant on Debilitating Injury more than ever. Your hit roll will suffer with that -2 to attack, and you need to make up for it. You may find yourself doing things like multiclassing with fighter, buying your weapons up to +5 before dipping into cool abilities, or not using Two Weapon Fighting until you have a few rounds of Debilitating Injury under your belt. You'll do a lot of damage, but you need to keep in mind these situations and choices are going to affect it. Never forget that "potential" damage needs to be compared to realistic situations.

I should probably do a whole post on that, but to explain it quickly: It doesn't matter what someone is technically capable of doing. It matters what they're capable of doing, and how often.  The TWF rogue will get his damage most of the time, probably, but the situations where he doesn't don't count for nothing. You can't judge something as wildly diverse and varied as pen and paper games just by what numbers are on the page, and keep that in mind when you're thinking about this post too. Rogue having nice damage doesn't mean it's a "power" class. Nothing we found out today means Fighter sucks, either. There are ways to judge how useful a class is in general, and there are even classes that objectively suck, but most times, the decision process is muddier and more complex than just "thing bad" and "thing good".

Really, Two Weapon Fighting or no, Rogue's damage is reliant on the character creating opportunities for himself. If he can do that, through cleverness and guile, he can dish out a lot of punishment. Using your brain is, after all, the entire point of the class.