Argh!! Useless Rogues

[Scion]

Most rogues I have seen tend to have high ints as well and I allow a feat which grants the humans '+1 skill point each level' ability so some even take that as well. Human rogue, 16 int, with that feat = 13 maxed out skills to choose from. That is a 'very' impressive skill set.

Generally though a rogue really can pick about 8 to focus his character around and then a few others at max or less to toy with as sub specialties.

If you find that a campaign isnt useing certain skills as much as you would like then you could use psychic reformation (psionic power in the srd) or limited wish to redo all of your skill point choices. Easy enough

Skill use does depend on the game, but there are work arounds, especially if you ask the dm to use skills more regularly.

A heavily skill based character can be great in a game where people do not metagame horribly also (say that you have lots of knowledge skills, whenever you come across something 'new' for the characters you are the answer man and know how to exploit its weaknesses).

 

[Land Outcast]

Well, as e all know, it varies from rogue to rogue, but I'm more than happy with my Bastard-sword-wielding-feinting-tumbling-dungeon-delving-ancestors-seeking-rogue-7

 

[nittanytbone]

Bear in mind that not every skill needs to be kept maxed out. Oftentimes, making a DC 15, 20, or 25 check can have significant benefits. Diplomacy, for example, works this way. So does crafting. If you invest in masterwork tools and equipment (skill bonus magic items are cheap) to get that +2 and have a decent linked attribute then you can actually have a very wide array of functional and useful skills.

 

[Kilroy]

First of all: You're in trouble if you attack a dragon when he's prepared. Why is it you assume the dragon is prepared? (I'm guessing it's because your DM has your enemies prepared at all times, regardless of PC tactics....but I could be wrong. Either way, we're no longer talking about how wimpy Rogues now, are we?)

Anyone's in trouble when they get jumped by something. Old dragons are smart, know this, and they can cast. A smart dragon would scram (Dim Door, Teleport, Invis, whatever) for a round or two then retake the initiative, not just start trying to chew on people who are obviously prepared for it. If your DM played it like a wounded grizzly, bully for you, but that sounds like a sad way for a majestic beast to go. For us, we've been jumped by things (dragons being among the most memorable) far more than we've jumped things because we have a lot more enemies than our enemies have us.

Second: Greater Dispel Magic. At caster level 13, up against casters of 16th to 20th level, those spells stand little chance.

True, but for a prepped dragon, it buys him a round of melee immunity and the caster's first action. That should be enough to flyby and grab someone tasty, at which point the party is pretty boned. (My current party is notoriously bad at dealing with flying enemies.)

Third: In our case, the dragon wasn’t prepared. I located him with Discern Location, we buffed, then we Greater Teleported to right beside him. We had the surprise round....and it went downhill for the dragon from there.

Can you normally Greater Teleport to a place you just have the name of like that? I thought Greater Teleport required a good description. If so, that's useful, my current character has Greater Teleport and we have several places we have names for but nothing else.

Unless the PCs are all immune to fear. Check out the description of the spell Heroes' Feast. Did I mention we were immune to acid? Guess what the dragon tried round 1?

Yeah, totally missed that in Heros' Feast. For some reason I thought I had thought the immunity was just to poison, and it was a +1 to fear saves like bless. I even usually cast that every day. ;-)

The Rog 16/Ftr2 attack bonus was (I think....remember, I'm not the player...he might be using Weapon Finesse, or have some other feats/equipment of which I’m not aware....): +2(Ftr) +12(Rog) +1 (weapon focus) +7(Str) +5(Magic) +1(Haste) +3(Recitation) +2(Righteous Wrath) +2(flank)

Total: +35

That's a tad over the +23 you estimated.

My math is better than my typing. ;-) I had thought +33 (14 BAB, 5 magic, 7 str, 1 haste, 2 flank, 3 spell, 1 focus) What's Righteous Wrath? I had thought you meant Righteous Might and kinda glazed over it.

He was using two weapons, with 2 extra attacks at full attack bonus from the boots of speed and Righteous Wrath. If I've got the AB right, then that is an attack routine that looks like this:

+33/+33/+33/+33/+28/+28/+23

Since he's flanking, he gets the sneak attack on each hit. Given a target AC of 39, the average damage per round would be 249 hp. (Remember: that’s average....and it looks like one round our Rogue was a little lucky.) I can show you the calculations if you’d like.

AC 39...

Sorry, still a little stunned that a black Wyrm wouldn't have mage armor, any protective items, Contingency Teleport ... was he just sitting on 240,000 gp of random loot not using it for anything? Not even underwater? Wow, we have different DMs ;-) Mine would probably have had him wearing bracers of armor, a ring of protection, +con & dex items, and if we were really asking for it, a scroll of something awful like Timestop (dragons have in class UMD) as part of his treasure.

Didn't he even try to move away to position the breath better and make people move up to him?

Worst of all, the dragon didn't hover? Hover makes sneak attack impossible, and it's a move action for the dragon. If the dragon had just flown up 20' and hovered the first round, you would have been toast.

It sounds like your DM's way behind the curve in your group's min/max arms race, compared to your characters. My DM's alwaysa a step ahead. Jerk. ;-)

 

[Synthetik Fish]

My 'short list' of rogue skills that are really important:

Search
Spot
Listen
Hide
Move Silently
Disable Device
Open Lock
Use Magic Device
Bluff
Sense Motive
Craft[Poisonmaking]
Craft[Traps]
Escape Artist
Gather Information
Diplomacy
Knowledge[dungeoneering]
Sleight of Hand
Tumble

Poison is great for NPCs... not so hot for PCs. In a combat, you'll only get use of the first "damage" of the poison, not the second. That, and the DC's tend to be low, and they are expensive. I'd much rather pick a "potion" of ray of enfeeblement to put on a weapon... or the Poison spell at a decent save DC.

 

[Kilroy]

You can also suppliment the 15-foot-threat range with something like Improved Invisibility, Blink, and I *think* theres a way to do it with Darkness and hiding? At any rate, soemone who is a GOOD rogue and studies up would have plenty of backup strategy.

Check out Doomtide in Complete Divine. Cast it, tap the rogue, go to town on the dazed enemies because the darkness affects them, but not you.

 

[Synthetik Fish]

Wow, those really powerful. Those totally change the damage ability for rogues.

Where are they from and what are they called?

Dragon #304. pg. 84 (the list of feats start on page 83, and ALL of the feats from this sectio nare REALLY awesome.)

DEAD EYE
Your precision with ranged weapons translates into more telling strikes than you could normally make.

Prerequsites: Dex 13+, base attack bonus +1, Point Blank Shot, Weapon Focus (any ranged weapon.)

Benefit: You may add your Dexterity bonus to all damage rolls made with ranged weapons for which you have the Weapon Focus feat, so long as the target is within 30 feet.
Special: Dead Eye does not increase the damage dealt to creatures that are immune to critical hits.


Note that it doens't say that you DONT get strength damage from thrown weapons, you still get it. Yeah sure its an awesome feat, but it has a decent amount of prerequsites so I think its fair. It comes from Dragon Magazine, so its 100% official, too! And it really makes sense, considering. In this section there is also a feat called Windup which is basicly Power Attack for thrown weapons.

The 15-foot threat one I'm trying to find. It was in a Word document that was a complation of feats form several different books.

 

[Lord Wyrm]

1st: Caster Support, just as you keep them alive and using their offensive spells they should nerf the enemy mage (who's probably hovering somewhere high above you) with Dispel Magic, Greater Dispelling, or even Epic Dispel Magic. Then you can go nuts on the poor defenseless evil mage who's AC is now terrible cause not only do you have him flat-footed he just lost a huge number of buff spells and defensive items, and if he has fly to stay away from you he just took fallling damage too.

2nd: OK, one sneak a round against a mage with terrible HP. Remember that's a mage's main weakness, his HP and AC when he unbuffed/unequipped. One or two solid shots, even if it takes four rounds, can knock them own and keep it that way.

3rd: Grapples. You don't have to be great cause remember, the enemy mage is worse at them than you are, and really big strong guys you can escape the grapple if the tide turns with Escape Artist.

4th: Skills, correct, only a few skills are wholly useful maxed out.

Sleight of Hand: It isn't great but you'll hate yourself if you really need it and are untrained, solution-take one rank in it. Now you can use it and have made the bare minimum investment in doing so.

Tumble: It's one of those skills that a +15 is more than sufficient, rings of feather fall solve that whole 10000ft drop problem so now its just moving through threatened squares. Decent dex+gloves of Dex+ a skill ring if you can find it + 8 ranks (the most I'd be willing to put into it with firm magical support) works fine in most cases.

Spot, Search, Listen: Max Search, especially if the DM owns a grimtooth's (if you don't know what I refer to then your're probably safe, BTW I own one, exceedingly deadly). Spot or Listen maxed is probably good, but not both. I prefer Listen myself for dungeon crawls, for more open games Spot becomes a must.

Hide, Move Silently: I prefer not to max these as one of the two is usually sufficient, if nothing else you can get magical support. If you do max both then I wouldn't take Tumble at all.

Disable Device: Handy but if you have a good Use Magic Device and a decent wizard then you should be fine without maxing at higher levels.

Bluff: Yeah, this is pretty handy. Max out if your're non-Lawful. I'm normally play LE or LN so I don't take it that often (thou shalt not lie)

Sense Motive: If you have a decent paladin or cleric or UMD then your're probably fine topping out at 5 ranks.

Craft(poisonmaking, traps, carpentry, stoneworking): OK, I'm love craft and I try to always keep at least two of them maxed out on my rogues. That's personal preference cause I get very creative with them, if you don't think you can pull off a craft then don't take it.

Escape Artist: Now this all depends on your feat choices and if you did take a good Hide and Sleight of Hand. It is the fighter's job to pull you out of grapples if you stuck. When tied up that dagger you secreted away will help with the ropes.

Gather Information: Handy, good to have, but not neccessary if you've got a bard of a divination inclined individual (not just diviners, anyone with a decant selection of divinations)

Diplomacy: Not your job, ever. Intimidate can go alot further in your hands if your're not good. If your're good then the paladin can easily do the negotiations, heck he's even got a good reputation.

Knowledge(any): One is good to have, couple ranks here, a handful there. Makes life far better for you in the long run if and only if you are creative in your uses of the knowledge skills. Otherwise your're just a shoddy diviner and no one likes that.

My standard first level picks: Knowledge(something creative and unexpected like engineering or arcana) or Survival, Craft (any one or two that fit the character background and I feel I can get creative with), Intimidate or Bluff, Listen, Search, Escape Artist or Use Magic Device, Hide or Move Silently (I lean towards hide), Sleight of Hand and Gather Info (2 ranks each)

That's eight plus anymore I feel like getting based on a high Int or being Human with some priority to Disable Device

 

[Saeviomagy]

True, but for a prepped dragon, it buys him a round of melee immunity and the caster's first action. That should be enough to flyby and grab someone tasty, at which point the party is pretty boned. (My current party is notoriously bad at dealing with flying enemies.)

Then either
a) get better
b) don't fight anywhere that flying is a bennie

Really - you're playing high level D&D and you can't take care of flight?? Even at low level something like obscuring mist covers it. Admittedly thanks to blindsight a dragon is a bit better off... but so should you be.

AC 39...

Sorry, still a little stunned that a black Wyrm wouldn't have mage armor, any protective items, Contingency Teleport ...

Contingency teleport requires a caster level of 15th...

was he just sitting on 240,000 gp of random loot not using it for anything? Not even underwater? Wow, we have different DMs ;-) Mine would probably have had him wearing bracers of armor, a ring of protection, +con & dex items, and if we were really asking for it, a scroll of something awful like Timestop (dragons have in class UMD) as part of his treasure.

Hell, why not go straight for MDJ?

Didn't he even try to move away to position the breath better and make people move up to him?

Chances are the breath got everyone anyway. It just didn't do anything - because if you know you're fighting a black dragon, you get acid resistance...

Worst of all, the dragon didn't hover? Hover makes sneak attack impossible, and it's a move action for the dragon. If the dragon had just flown up 20' and hovered the first round, you would have been toast.

from hover: "Clear vision is limited to 10 feet". IOW - it doesn't do squat unless you're a ranged-combat rogue. Which suck anyway.

It sounds like your DM's way behind the curve in your group's min/max arms race, compared to your characters. My DM's alwaysa a step ahead. Jerk. ;-)

It sounds like neither you nor your DM are that hot on the rules.

 

[Synthetik Fish]

from hover: "Clear vision is limited to 10 feet". IOW - it doesn't do squat unless you're a ranged-combat rogue. Which suck anyway.

It sounds like neither you nor your DM are that hot on the rules.

Sounds like you're not hot on the game. Ranged combat rogues ROCK. You just have to know how to play them. Read my post on knife-throwers. If you think ranged-combat rogues suck, i think it's really You that sucks... at playing rogues.