Okay, from the top...
This started off with rogues vs other martials in combat effectiveness. So the baseline is not 1 attack +2 offhand attacks. I am comparing against Fighter 11/12, because it brings the simplest calculation possible in the form of a non-expendable 3 attacks (compared to paladin smites, barbarian rages, hex, hunter's mark, spells, etc.) It is also the most directly comparable one to Rogue, as it also uses a non-expendable resource (and, in the case of trickster, some meaningless attack spells).
That's not how haste/speed/bloodlust works, though. It gives you a whole action. For a rogue, that's one attack. For a fighter, that's *three*. For a ranger, paladin, barbarian, bladelock, that's two.
That's my whole point though - the assertion was that Rogue damage compares unfavorably to Martials in general, under the premise that Rogues have 2-3 less attacks. My point is that Martials in general do not, ever, have 2-3 more attacks. Barbarians or Paladins have the same number of attacks in the general case, and while hasted, have 2(Action)+2(Action)+1(Bonus Action) for 5, compared to a Hasted Rogue having 1(Action)+1(Action)+2(Bonus Actions), for 4; a difference of 1, not 2-3. I will grant that the specific case of a Hasted Fighter 11+ has more attacks, but a) that applies to them vs Barbarians and Paladins as well, and b) that doesn't represent the majority of the game even for that specific case anyway. As such, the general assertion that Martials have superior damage is not proven through the specific case of a hasted fighter. A Rogue's sneak attack damage compares favorably to a Barbarian's Rage damage bonus or even a Paladin's Smite in most cases, the difference in number of attacks often cited as the reason why their damage is inadequate would mean that a Fighter 11+ is in your opinion the only adequate damage and the only true "martial" character. It is that idea, that a Fighter 11+ is the only "adequate" damage, as well as the idea that a Rogue is far behind the damage of Rangers, Barbarians, Paladins, or the rest of the Martial characters, that I disagree with.
We really need to set some boundaries here about what we are and are not comparing. Why compare the melee to the ranged? If you require one side of the comparison be ranged sharpshooter, why not the other? Especially since the other side does it better thanks to 2 extra attacks, Archery style, and no positioning/hide/flank requirement.
If you have the melee fighter on one side, you gotta have the melee rogue on the other. Ditto ranged.
It is if you hit more times; and per-hit bumps only scale more with more hits.
Again all of your characterizations rely on specifically comparing the Rogue vs the Fighter. I don't want to disagree for the sake of disagreeing - I readily grant that a ranged fighter deals greater average damage than a ranged Rogue, as they must in my opinion for the game to be balanced, since they have way less going on outside of damage output. I noticed btw the number of non-conditional additional attacks claimed crept back up to 2 btw when a non-conditional (non-hasted) fighter only has 1 more, but whatever. Can you agree that the Rogue does *not* have significantly less damage output than martial characters in a general sense, and that the number of hits advantage does not exist to a significant extent outside of specifically a Fighter? Can you also agree that a Rogue brings more to the party out of combat than said fighter does? I agree it's important to delineate what exactly we're disagreeing about.
Sure. And a fighter that jumps can cover an entire movement's distance (and more!) in one leap, and then still move to get in range and unleash full attacks (minus the bonus action one, I guess).
Chasms? Fighter jump them better.
Again with the dirty comparison of melee fighter vs ranged rogue. Why? Is there a rule that prevents fighters from being hand-crossbow-sharpshooters in your game?
Again, I really can't take into consideration playstyle and refusal to use the Jump ability in this comparison.
I have encountered more phantom railings becoming impenetrable projectile-blocking than I have terrain that I can't work around with a leap.
Again. Do you have a homerule against sharpshooter fighters, or something? Ditto melee rogues?
The above is an example of a logical fallacy, I can't recall the name offhand. Why am I comparing a melee fighter to a ranged rogue? Because you keep talking about jump capabilities! A ranged character, fighter or otherwise, will not have a huge strength score, and thus won't have an advantage in their jump capabilities vs a ranged rogue! EITHER they have great jump capabilities compared to a ranged rogue, OR they are ranged, there is no point in comparing against an impossible superposition of all the possibilities for a fighter being simultaneously applied. Though again, the difference in jump capabilities will *never* be greater than dash distance as it's capped at 5m before things like Athlete are applied, much less greater than the range of a crossbow at 30m diameter, you vastly overstate how much better of jumpers high Str characters are vs Str 10 characters, just saying.
If something is surrounding the fighter and actually has worrying amounts of damage that you'd rather not eat as opportunity attacks, then it is not a worthless add, and is instead fully worth it to invest fighter attacks into killing. If it is a worthless add, and there is a move juicy target somewhere else, the fighter is easily best served eating the opportunity attacks (relying on superior AC and health), and just going for the high value target.
But the entire benefit of a Fighter or Martial character is that they can apply multiple hits to the same target. If you have 3-5 small targets you're best off with someone with AOE damage (typically a caster) clearing them, while the martial / high DPS character chunks down the big threat. It's not that the Fighter *Can't* kill the small guys around him, it's that it's an inefficient use of resources. The spellcaster pops off a crowd control spell, then while maintaining concentration on that, AOEs down the little stuff. And if they just ignore the little stuff and take the hits, that's more time spent by other characters dishing out healing instead of doing other things. Either way, the fight overall takes longer and consumes more resources.
That's... actually pretty nice, yeah.
Right?! That's the entire point. I'm not saying a Rogue does more damage than a Fighter 11. It would be a poorly balanced game if they did. I'm saying they do perfectly acceptable damage, on par with "martial" characters in general, while contributing a *ton* outside of combat.
There are three no-max-dex medium armors in the game. With them, you can get *hilarious* AC values at ~no cost to the rest of your build.
For this reason, I stopped taking odd main stats on most builds. An ASI and a feat to get a 17 to 20 has the same total cost as two ASIs to gt a 16 to 20, and few of the +1 Ability feats are really good.
Those statements seem to be at odds with each other, just saying. I don't think a dip of more than 1 away from Rogue is worth it, I'd never give up Reliable Expertise. So the choices are a) dip Ranger or Fighter, which doesn't increase Dex, b) Start with a lower dex and put another point or two in a stat I don't care about, then pump two ASIs into Dex instead of 1, or c) Take Moderately Armored, and gain access to all the medium armor equipment in general, as well as some hilarious AC values (your words). IMHO C is the obviously superior choice of those 3.
No, you misunderstand. I can *find* the suitable target, but that suitable target is also more swiftly dealt with by just a bonk to the face... even if this again gets us back to the unclean comparison of melee fighter vs ranged rogue.
I fully understand how a ranged rogue can be effective, if not the optimal choice for the role. Far as I'm concerned, the *crucial* lacking territory is in any melee rogue variant; it is just never ever worth it to risk being so exposed to the front line and in plain view of all the enemies, just to stab someone in the spleen for ~1.5x of a fighter's basic attack.
I fully agree a melee Rogue is a terrible option. The only difference of opinion there is, I don't think it's important for it to be a good option, and don't think it would be particularly balanced if it was.
