Shattered Kingdoms

Mana regen for bards is fine if you max mana. More than fine actually.

Give Rogues dual wield. lol Yeah I can't see that happening, but one can hope. But added damage is a must, the adjustment to e-damage hurt the class.

Rogues should be able to sneak around their enemies formation and attack the whole back row as opposed to the column attack. Maybe?

If you gave Scouts the marksmanship skill that keeps coming up and "Volley" they could fire off a bunch(9-10) of arrows quickly into the air that would rain down on the column and damage everyone in it. Could kind of be like fireball.

As for a rogue attacking a column without any "magically enhanced abilities".... they would have to do some tumbling(flips, rolls, vaulting, etc) to have any kind of chance of striking everyone in a column and returning back to their formation in my mind. Otherwise all I could visualize is somehow leaping into the air, vaulting off another person in their group and throwing a bunch of darts, knives, throwing stars, shards of glass/metal at the column or just flank the other group from one side and do the same thing. They could also come up with some type of IED/grenade/molitov cocktail/rocket/bombs that they could throw at the group in all kinds of different ways to hit the entire column. I like the idea of them tumbling through the formation and slicing/stabbing/cutting as they go and then returning to their formation better though.

Rogue's tumbling attack hits you!
Rogue's tumbling attack cuts Bread!
Rogue's tumbling attack slices Turkey!

Maybe I'm crazy but I think it makes sense. I just don't know how to work out the damage aspect but I'll leave that to the rest of you.

And speaking of damage, you could give rogues "Lethal Precision" or "Critical Precision" which could be their own special version of enhanced damage justified by them knowing/identifying the weakest points to strike their enemy that'll inflict the most damage.

You could also give the same skill to swashbucklers. Just make it DEX based instead of STR like I'm assuming enhanced damage is.

A rogue column attack doesn't have to be that acrobatic if you just limit it a bit. The rogue simply flanks the column and runs past it while stabbing quickly. That makes for less deadly attacks than a focused circle stab or backstab of course. However, I do see it would be a problem in a full group with a middle column. The column attacked should always have room next to either of its sides, leaving it so that on a full group you can only attack the left and right columns in a full group. That would mean that the only person really safe from getting hit by a rogue flanking attack would be a someone in the middle spot. Further limits to make the column attacks could be added such as if the rear most person dodges the attack the rogue will have to move away from the attacked groups formation to safety as person that dodged wont be preoccupied with the pain and will be able to defend the 2nd rows flank and thus the attack sequence ends and no one is hurt. Same counts if the 2nd row dodges then the 1st row wont be able to be attacked. A bit more complicated but I think more realistic if that really has to be an issue The skill should be high level.

Backrow attack sounds fine too, but it really doesn't fix any problems? It's just a nice feat that I doubt many will use? I mean, it doesn't fix the issue with rogues only dealing dmg to characters pets that have been placed behind them in pk.

It doesn't necessarily solve any problems, no. But as you point out, if you consider the sides to be open and make this 'flanking' attack hit any row 2 or row 3 person who is not surrounded on either side, then only a full group of 9 would have a single protected spot...

With the current playerbase, how often will a rogue be facing a full party?

I like the idea of the scout volley. It could be a command with similar lag to blitzkrieg that shoots one arrow at each member of an enemy formation, and it could obviously be used at range. Like blitzkrieg, it would not have an argument and would only be usable once you're already in combat (no ambush volleys).

Regarding rogues, I would prefer to see their utility expanded as opposed to just ratcheting their damage back up. Here are some new skills that could achieve that:

stealth - A rogue who uses the stealth command disappears off the who list, and any items carried by the rogue are not subject to being located by magical spells. The rogue does not even appear as (Someone) on the who list. A stealthed rogue would also automatically succeed saving throws against gate or summon spells, provided he or she is resisting summons. A true seeing spell would counter stealth. Entering combat or taking damage would end the rogue's stealth.

where - A rogue could use this command to determine whether any other PCs are in the area he or she is currently in, and the name of the room they are in, drawing on the rogue's street smarts and keeping abreast of the rumors of who has been going where. This would return the name or description of the person, depending on whether the rogue has greeted the PC in question, and it would only return the identities of PCs that are visible to the rogue. Certain cabal abilities may defeat this skill. The skill would have lag similar to that of the request command, with the lag modified up or down based on the rogue having a low or high charisma score.

What do people think of expanding rogues' utility in new and different ways?

So you agree that would be potentially useful?

I think it would be nice to have, but would argue not a priority since it wouldn't really be used much in the current setting.

First and foremost, I feel like rogues need a large boost to damage, unique poisons that affect different stats and an evasive ability that dramatically increases reflex. Stealth sounds interesting too.