Argh!! Useless Rogues

[Pickaxe]

Assuming your DM can't or does not want to make the campaign more skill-friendly, and assuming you still want to play a rogue, I would suggest the following:

1) Don't go the melee route. Rogues don't have the AC or the HP to stand toe to toe, so getting the flank for the sneak attack will get you killed pretty quickly. On the other hand, your presumably high Dex will make you a good candidate for the bow tree.

2) Get the party wizard or sorc to take Glitterdust. Granted, this won't help you against undead, but it will give you many rounds of sneak attacks against more vulnerable foes.

3) Max out Use Magic Device. You can really save the party's bacon if the cleric goes down and you pull out the wand of cure X.

4) Max out Spot and Listen. In my experience, party spotter (or more than one) is a very important role. Not being surprised can make a huge difference in an encounter.

--Axe

 

[mikebr99]

Assuming your DM can't or does not want to make the campaign more skill-friendly, and assuming you still want to play a rogue, I would suggest the following:

1) Don't go the melee route. Rogues don't have the AC or the HP to stand toe to toe, so getting the flank for the sneak attack will get you killed pretty quickly. On the other hand, your presumably high Dex will make you a good candidate for the bow tree.

Please also note that there is a fairly heafty -20 to your hide skill when you are Sniping.

And two weapon fighting is an excellent option with SA... YMMV

2) Get the party wizard or sorc to take Glitterdust. Granted, this won't help you against undead, but it will give you many rounds of sneak attacks against more vulnerable foes.

how... exactly?

3) Max out Use Magic Device. You can really save the party's bacon if the cleric goes down and you pull out the wand of cure X.

4) Max out Spot and Listen. In my experience, party spotter (or more than one) is a very important role. Not being surprised can make a huge difference in an encounter.

--Axe

Good tips.

Mike

 

[Krafen]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pickaxe
2) Get the party wizard or sorc to take Glitterdust. Granted, this won't help you against undead, but it will give you many rounds of sneak attacks against more vulnerable foes.

how... exactly?



Glitterdust can blind the target.

 

[mikebr99]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Pickaxe
2) Get the party wizard or sorc to take Glitterdust. Granted, this won't help you against undead, but it will give you many rounds of sneak attacks against more vulnerable foes.

how... exactly?



Glitterdust can blind the target.

Ahh... thanks.


Mike

 

[JamesDJarvis]

Rogues are hardly useless.

Even in a lots of fighting campaign the rogue gets a whole lot of opportunities.

Get a missle weapon. You will be able to contribute in combat a little more often. Rogues are not great in hand to hand combat past a round or two.

Do not underate the value of scouting. Snooping ahead of the party is extremely valuable to the rest of the party and is most certainly using your skills and contributing to the game. If you snoop ahead and give the party enough warning the others should be able to help you find opportunities to shine and maximize their own effectiveness.

Facing a lot of undead at lot of the time? Buy holy water. Odds are you are going to hit frequently if your dex is good (what Rogue doesn't have good dex?).

 

[Garboshnik]

As a DM, I have to admit that I often have a lot of trouble including uses for many skills. There are some (such as appraise) that could probably just be removed entirely. Skills like move silently, balance, and hide on the other hand need to be there but also require some quite contrived situations in order to see much use.

It doesn't help that a lot of these uses require solo work for the rogue, essentially leaving the rest of the party bored for a while.

 

[Lamoni]

One other thing I try to do as a DM is to come up with a few situations where they are poorly equipped. Just because there is no rogue, doesn't mean they will never find a trap. Just because there is no monk doesn't mean going across a tightrope couldn't help in retrieving some treasure. Or if there is no cleric, a group of skeletons might still slow their progress to let the BBEG get away.

Of course, I try to fill my campaign with things that they do excel at much more often. But I like them to think, "If only I was a Paladin, we would have never been deceived by that lying cheat!". I hope that it inspires people to try new classes in the future. Part of enjoying a class is to both enjoy your strengths and occasionally realize your weaknesses... as long as the DM doesn't make your weakness result in instant death like only using wizards with phantasmal killer prepared against a party of rogues.

 

[irdeggman]

This may be recent experiences coloring my opinion , but I think Rogues are especially susceptible to this, because they're primary skill users. Comparing just the four "base classes":


And Rogues use skills. Which there are a lot of. And not really many opportunities to use them if the DM isn't giving you the right kind of challenges. If you're exploring dungeons and killing mindless monsters, how much is Bluff or Diplomacy going to help you? If you never encounter any traps or secret doors, what use is Disable Device and Open Lock? And so on. You can never even half of all the skills available (if you want to use them, that is, and not only have one rank of each for cosmetic purposes), and you pretty much have to guess which skill checks the DM is going to request. Plus, your skill selection is mostly set at first level, as the systems encourages you to max out your skills if you want to use them effectivly. If you play from 1st to 6th, and then realize that you never see any traps at all, you won't get back those 18 skill points you spent on Disable Device and Search. Heck, even if you're sure your not going to need them by third level you've still spent 12 skill points on them.

That's why I think playing Rogues is kind of a crapshoot, and that they're more dependent on the DM than other classes.

Hmm not near as much as a bard. Wasn't there just a thread on creating a bard that wasn't useless in the player's and his fellow gamers' minds?

Bards depend on interaction and without it they are really really boring.

Rogues can almost always find some way to be usefull. Trapfinding, scouting (true both skills - but in a dungeon setting trap finding/disarming is real common and useful), sneak attacks (in a primarily combat oriented game.

Bards get a handful of spells (a potpouri if you will) that makes him less useful than a wizard or cleric is in their own element - but great to supplement things. He has a limited amount of uses of his bardic songs (oops that depends on a perform skill check).

 

[Synthetik Fish]

To be blunt and honest, any class can be as useful or as useless as you make them to be. Granted, attention from the DM will make your job more evident and easier to fill, but even without the DM adding something just for your character/class, you can find great uses for each class.

To me the only exception is Druids. There are a lot of situations where Druids... just don't make sense. Thats IMHO, of course.

Rogues are my personal fav. class. The possibilities! Throwing daggers, Rapid Shot, Two Weapon Fighting, and Quick Draw. Combine that with a good tumble check, and you're sneak-attacking up the wazoo! Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Sense motive make for a great roll-player, and even party leader
Of course, Hide and Move Silently have their own niche. Cross-classing, to me, can prove to be very powerful for a rogue. Pick up 2 levels of fighter to get 2 extra feats... or 4 levels for weapon specialization (if you're really a "combat rogue" as I like to call 'em.) Sorcer is great for a Charismatic rogue, Wizard great for a skill-based one (high intel.) "Weapon-like" spells (rays, commonly) also work great with rogues. All you need is a ranged touch attack, and you get the spell's damage AND sneak attack damage? Yeah, I'll take that. Think of the possibilities for an assassin Spells can also compliment and enhance a rogue's ability to do its "job" in a lot of cases, too: open lock, jump, feather fall, true strike, etc. etc.

 

[Drowbane]

As previously mentioned, Rogues can easily be shut down if a DM wishes it so. Your problem has nothing to do with the class... and everything to do with your DM not considering the fact that you rock vs things that can be critted/sneaked and when given the chance to use your numerous skills. Being a DM is a tough job, perhaps you should speak to yours and respectfully illustrate how he let you down.

Its not the Class.