There is armor that is at least +5 AC +3 Dex. A decent fighter is getting at least +2 Dex out of that and is very quickly getting Cat's Grace or something to get them even more.
Cats grace gives +4, this means you are still only one point short. Again, not the end of the world.
wat. Lareth has 22 AC. Your level 3 fighter has a 10% chance to hit per swing. Good luck.
more like 15% + flanking bonuses that can push it to 35% for some, to a caster that is scripted to cast, therefore providing attacks of opportunity to your party of 6 making 6 attacks per round + 6 attacks of opportunity.
Its a remarkably easy fight for a swarm of fighters.
Not even close? That's 17 AC max until you start finding magical equipment (and it will be forever until you find enough equipment to equip everyone). At your absolute best you are capping at around 20 AC, which is a joke. By level 5 or so an average party has buffed fighters exceeding 30 AC, without shields. And using a shield means completely screwing your damage.
Without magical items with a full plate you have 18 + 1 per dex +2 fer shield at low level. Also if you think +2 extra to the AC will make a difference in a per encounter basis you are fucking delusional, or cannot into math. There is literally no difference in AC for a fighter with dex 26 and one with dex 12 + a full plate.
1d8 + 0 CON is not high HP pools. Its the same average as 1d4 + 2 CON, an average or slightly above average mage HP pool.
Fighters actually get 1d10, dwarven fighters would get 1d10+1. you may mix some barbarian levels for the back liners, rage is a nice bonus and they would get extra hp.
Except you have no +AB from stats and going rogue now means medium AB, so you literally never hitting anything except on natural 20s.
We are talking about 1 or two points in AB in a game where the AC remains mostly static and doesnt make much of a difference, plus you forget them flanking bonuses to attack. Biggest impact would actually be found on delaying your second attack.
We are not talking about a party that could demolish everything, but its certainly doable. Also remember that every member of the party would have access to ranged attacks, so pelting stuff in the first few rounds would be easily doable and its always a winning strategy for the early game, where casters get mostly carried to avoid spam resting. And do remember you get recruitable npcs down the line, with better stats and access to solid spellcasting.