13th lvl Rogue help

[daTim]

Hello, thanks to everyone who helped me make a weapon master many months ago. Needless to say he is dead, crushed by a 40 foot tall half earth elemental minotaur lord... Now I am thinking I want to play a rogue for the first time in 3e. We are using the 3.5 rules, and this is what I have come up with so far, as this is just the basic outline.

13th lvl Human Rogue
Hit Dice: 13d6+39 (81 HP)
Initiative: +5 (Dex)
Speed: 30 ft.
AC: 23 (+6 Dex, +6 Mithril Chain Shirt, +1 Ring of Protection)
Attacks: +16/+16/+11/+11 melee
Damage: 1d6+3 Short Sword
Face/Reach: 5 ft. by 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Qualities: Improved Evasion, Opportunist, Sneak Attack +7d6, Trap Finding, Trap Sense +4, Uncanny Dodge (Dex to AC, Cant be Flanked)
Saves: Fort +9, Ref +16, Will +7
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 20 (22), Con 14 (16), Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 8
Skills: Balance - 11, Bluff - 15, Climb - 5, Decipher Script - 7, Disable Device - 18, Escape Artist - 11, Hide - 22, Jump - 7, Listen - 17, Move Silently - 22, Open Lock - 17, Search - 16, Sense Motive - 11, Slight of Hand - 8, Spot - 17, Tumble - 24, Use Magic Device - 15, Use Rope - 7,
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Dual Strike, Improved Feint, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Finesse
Possessions: 2 +3 Short swords (46620g), +2 Mithril Chain Shirt (5100g), +2 Gloves of Dex (4000g), +2 Bracers of Con (4000g), +2 Cloak of Resistance (4000g), Ring of Protection +1 (2000g)

Basicly his schtick will be to flank oppontents to gain not only a really high attack bonus, but high damage with his 4 attacks a round. Flanking he will attack at +20/+20/+15/+15 for 1d6+3+7d6 damage. His high Int with skill points will help him to tumble, hide and sneak a round opponenents.

Considering Crippling strike. While the Str Loss looks nice on paper, I dont know if it will really be that useful. By the time it starts adding up to relevant numbers the guy I'm stabbin should be dead. Just 4 hits or so, for a -2 to hit/damage, would do on average 4d6+12+28d6 damage, avg to 126 damage.

For items... considering boots of speed, or striding and springing, gloves of storing so I can quick draw my weapons... Still have a decent ammount of money left. We generally get 2/3 of the reccommended ammount. I most likely will get a wand of healing, and some other wand, possibly invisibility? Need to put that UMD to use!

 

[sithramir]

His AC from dex alone is 15 (are you for sure taking studded leather?)

What items magical can you choose basic costs from DMG?

Remember that tumbling to flank them you will only get 1 attack that round so duel wielding isn't huge.

However. a quick draw will allow your guy to flank with one weapon and quick draw 2 if you wanted. Improved feint is a must for a thief. Int 13 and prereq's i'd work on getting that.

 

[Xeoble]

Spring for a Mithral Shirt instead of the studded leather.

 

[daTim]

What is improved feint? I dont have the 3.5 rules books yet so if its in there I'm not sure how it works. The tumbling would mostly be to just get in position, though If I am dealing out too much damage I am afraid I might get targeted by the bad guys. Perhaps go Spring attack instead of dual wielding? As far as magic items, anything from an official book, but no more than 5 wonderous items total.

 

[Spatula]

The high Con is a good idea, it makes a big difference at in your hit point totals at these levels and allows you to stay in the fight longer than less hardy rogues.

Get a Cloak of Resistance to shore up your saving throws; they are fairly inexpensive for what you get from them. A Cloak of Displacement is also a good choice, since it will keep at least some of the enemy's attacks from hitting you, allowing you to stay in full attack range longer. Not so cheap though.

If you are going for lots of sneak attacks, I'd consider replacing Improved Evasion with Crippling Strike. Every two sneak attacks is a guaranteed -1 to hit/damage for the target.

What is Dual Strike?

 

[Mike Sullivan]

Either your Fort or your Will save looks wrong to me. Your con is 16, and your Wis is 12, right? So that's a +3 versus a +1. So how can your Fort save be only one point higher than your Will save?

 

[crater]

Lots of scrolls and wands too, to make use of the Use Magic Device skill, this really changes things a lot. You get to heal, dispel magic, cast shield and true strike on yourself, use touch attack spells to make high AC opponents much more hittable and still sneak-attackable, not to mention fly, fireball and haste. Oh, and Summon Monster to create your own flanking partner when your party is all busy.

For a feat, I agree that Quickdraw is a very useful option for a rogue, especially if your DM will let you quickdraw scrolls. It makes you very versatile, changing quickly between melee and ranged weapons during a fight. Alternatively Expertise will give you valuable AC bonuses while you use touch attack spells (Feint combined with Touch attacks means you ignore armour, natural armour and dex, so the -5 BaB isnt so bad).

On a skill point (hoping I havent missed something really obvious),you dont seem to have any ranks in Bluff, which is essential if you are going to feint, and also for a whole bunch of other uses, like distracting opponents to give you a chance to hide, and....well...lying! This you should keep as high as possible, because there are hefty negative modifiers for some of the more...creative yarns you might want to spin.

I dont want to mess with your character concept too much, but something might have to go in order to build up Bluff and balance some of the other skills, and it might as well be Sleight of Hand (at 11 its not much use, unless you are going to pick pockets of really low-level unperceptive things) and Use Rope.

How did you figure 21 Use Magic Device? I make it 16 ranks max, -1 cha, +2 synergy from Decipher Script if it regards scrolls. Thats 15/17.

Also, dont forget to factor in your masterwork tools for Disable Mechanism and Open Lock. That will take OL up to 24, which means you can pick a DC40 lock on a rolled 16. Hopefully these will be few and far between, so you could take 4 points off (just take a 20 for the really hard ones) and put it into something like Sense Motive, as any half decent bluffer will pull the wool over your eyes most of the time at the moment, and that will be embarrassing, whereas taking ages to pick a fiendishly complex lock will just make you look proffessional. Alternatively, bring it right down, put the points somewhere else, and just carry a wand of Knock.

As for Search, you will have to take 20s all the time to find secret doors and well-hidden traps, so this should be maxed out to 16+int=18, and then get some magical skill booster item like a lens of detection, so that you can take a 10 all the time and be sure that you will find everything. With a +5 item bonus you will get 33 when you take a 10, which is enough to find secret doors and 8th level magical traps. A +10 item means you are safe for as long as you remember to say that you are searching.

Rogues are expected to be able to do just about everything, and theres never enough skill points to go around! Something always has to wait until next level, and these are just the priorities that I would set myself. Happy rogueing!


Edit: And I would definately recommend Goggles of the Night, for Darkvision.

 

[Zoelef]

Disclaimer: I have not played D&D in over a year, but I just purchased a 3.5 PHB and glossed over a 3.5 DMG.

IIRC 3.5 Swords of Subtlety -> 22,310gp

There are two main suggestions I have:

First, I would pick up Twin-Sword Style [FRCS] over Dual Strike or ITWF: T-SS Gives a +2 armor bonus (stacks with all) vs. one opponent in melee with you. Defense = good.

Secondly, I would go with 1 SoS and 1 +2 Short Sword: If you're fighting something you can't sneak the +2 goes to your 'good hand' where it does better than the SoS.

If you move -> sneak, you can wield the SoS by itself with no real loss to the offhand sword...and, of course, if you're full-round sneaking, and it's a really hard-to-hit guy, you can attack with the SoS by itself (right?)

Aside: Weapon in each hand, Twin-Sword Style. Am I allowed to attack with only one weapon? If so, can I still apply the bonus? (Apologies for the aside, but the more I think about it the more I'd like to know.)

This saves you over 14k, to boot. 2/3 * 110k ~= 70-75k
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Once again, I haven't played in a long time and it's a changed system, so there's a good chance I've made various egregious errors.

 

[crater]

....and dont leave home home without Improved Initiative!

Edit: I dont think you can use Twin Sword Style if you attack with only one weapon. The description is something like a "dazzling display which confuses your enemy", or words to that effect, and its a style of fighting specific to several regions. There is a seperate feat somewhere for Single Weapon Style, or even Off-Hand Parry, which gives you the same bonus. On the other hand you might be able to convince your DM that you are attacking with full concentration with one weapon and just waggling the other one around in the air to confuse the enemy!

A possible solution might be to wear a +1 buckler on your off-hand, so that when you attack with one weapon you use the buckler for defence, +2 AC.

 

[sithramir]

What is improved feint? I dont have the 3.5 rules books yet so if its in there I'm not sure how it works. The tumbling would mostly be to just get in position, though If I am dealing out too much damage I am afraid I might get targeted by the bad guys. Perhaps go Spring attack instead of dual wielding? As far as magic items, anything from an official book, but no more than 5 wonderous items total.

Improved feint is a change name from a Feat in 3.0 thief splatbook. It just allows you to use your bluff skill to "feint" in combat. Now in the skills section of 3.5 "feinting" is a standard action hence you would not be able to attack that round.

This feat changes it to a move equivalent action meaning you can attakc the same round.

If you feint and out bluff their sense motive check you cause them to lose their dexterity bonus and this allows for you to sneak attack them. Very useful ability if you can't always flank behind your fighter type in certain situations.