Core Rogue Build

AnonymousOne

First Post
Shellman said:
I have played a good number of rogues and personally fell that two weapon fighting takes up too many feats to be reasonably effective.

IMHO; The rogues poor BAB and penalties for TWF dont make for a good chance to hit after the first or secondary attacks. Feats are way too valuable at one every 3rd level to waste on something that produces too little result at higher levels.

I'm not sure I agree with this. A pair of +1 or +2 daggers, and flanking means that you're rolling at either a +1 or +2, add things like Deft Strike (Yes I know it's not Core only) and Improved Feint, and you've got a righteous setup. You tumble behind the character your tank is engaged with and study him with Deft Strike (he losses Armor and Natural Armor bonuses to AC) Next round you feint him with that nasty Bluff check, he fails and you sneak attack him again and again with TWF built in. That can add up to alot of Sneak Attack damage in one round.
 

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Dannyalcatraz

Schmoderator
Staff member
Supporter
Before I'd make a single suggestion, I'll ask this:

Have you ever played rogues before? If so, how do you tend to do so? If not, what drew you to the class this time?

I ask because if you do have an archetype in mind, it will help us focus on how to realize your vision.
 

Nifft

Penguin Herder
AnonymousOne said:
Next round you feint him with that nasty Bluff check, he fails and you sneak attack him again and again with TWF built in. That can add up to alot of Sneak Attack damage in one round.

TWF and Feint are both excellent Rogue tactics, but not in conjunction -- if you Feint (with Improved Feint), you get only a Standard action to make an attack.

Cheers, -- N
 

Darklone

Registered User
Bbn/Rogs or Ftr/Rogs all the way. They don't have problems to hit either.

And halflings rogues with Weapon Finesse do hit pretty well too.
 

Nifft

Penguin Herder
My favorite Core Rogue Cheese is:

Rogue 16 / Ftr 2 / Bbn 2 - BAB +16 (four attacks), zero dead levels, just enough Barbarian levels to stack with Rogue for Uncanny Dodge. (Typically it's dangerous to take four levels of something else, because you can then be flanked by two Rogues of your same level.)

Rogue 13 / Bbn 7 - BAB +16, DR 1/--, some decent Rage benefits, full Uncanny Dodge.

Rogue 13 / Bbn 1 / Ranger 6 -- er, what XP penalty? ;)

- - -

Outside of Core:

Rogue 13 / Warblade 7 -- lots of skills, good HP, BAB +16, maneuvers, and you're effectively a 5th level Fighter for bonus feats, so you can get in on the Weapon Specialization / Weapon Mastery chain if you wish. Full Tumble ranks, full Uncanny Dodge progression too, but not nearly as many bonus feats.

Rogue 16 / Warlock 4 -- Skill-boosting Least Invocations and Use Magic Device! ;)

Cheers, -- N
 

pawsplay

Hero
Nifft said:
TWF and Feint are both excellent Rogue tactics, but not in conjunction -- if you Feint (with Improved Feint), you get only a Standard action to make an attack.

Cheers, -- N

Correct. A TWF fighting rogue should focus on Mobility and Tumble, for flanking, and should look into invisibility.

A feiner may wish to use a dagger or rapier and consider a few levels of Duelist or Invisible Blade.
 

Salthorae

Imperial Mountain Dew Taster
AnonymousOne said:
I'm not sure I agree with this. A pair of +1 or +2 daggers, and flanking means that you're rolling at either a +1 or +2, add things like Deft Strike (Yes I know it's not Core only) and Improved Feint, and you've got a righteous setup. You tumble behind the character your tank is engaged with and study him with Deft Strike (he losses Armor and Natural Armor bonuses to AC) Next round you feint him with that nasty Bluff check, he fails and you sneak attack him again and again with TWF built in. That can add up to alot of Sneak Attack damage in one round.

Why do you need to Fient your opponent to gain multiple Sneak Attacks? See the section called "Number of Attacks" here from Skip Williams. Unless there has been a change I missed somewhere, all attacks when flanking are sneak attacks (regardless of fient or not)...

Unless you were just using the Fient to drop the defender's AC further by removing Dex in addition to the Deft Strike removal of Armor and Natural Armor...
 

nittanytbone

First Post
PHB Only Rogue with 32 Buy:

There are two broad types of rogue, and they are not mutually exclusive.

1) Trap Monkey
These are skilled builds. The only two skills that are mandatory are maxed out Search and Disable Device with the trapfinding ability. Every party needs one member with one level of rogue -- the skills can be kept maxed out cross-class if necessary.

Subsets of this include the "face" (social skills) and "scout" (hide/MS/Spot/Listen -- although magic is often better for divining than you will be!).

2) Dual-Wielder

This build is simply a combat style, using the rogue's abilities to deal damage.

For the former, all you need is one level of rogue. From there, build whatever you want on top. Rogue 1/Cloistered Cleric 19, Rogue 1/Druid, Rogue 1/Wizard, whatever. Just make sure your int is high enough to keep Search and Disable device maxed. Being a human is an obvious advantage for the bonus SP. Any combat style is appropriate; due to multiclassing your SA dice may be low, so something like Spring Attack could keep you safer.

For the latter, you are simply utilizing a combat style to do damage. In this regard, you are no different or more essential than the barbarian with power attack or the archer with his bow. In fact, you are less essential as sneak attack is often foiled by special protections.

To build a strong dual-wielder, you want to add as much bonus damage as possible to each hand. Sources of bonus damage in core only include: Rogue Sneak Attack, Bard Inspire Courage, Cleric Divine Favor, Ranger Favored Enemy, Horizonwalker Terrain Mastery, Fighter Weapon Spec, Magic Weapons (especially +1d6 elemental damage ones).

I would suggest, for a character working from level 1 on up, to open with something like this:

1 - Rogue 1 - Iron Will
2 - Ranger 1 - Track, Favored Enemy
3 - Ranger 2 - Weapon Finesse, Combat Style (TWF)

From there, you can do a two level fighter dip for more feats (especially Weapon Focus: Short Sword), go up to Rogue 4+ for more skills, SA, evasion, and uncanny dodge, or up to Ranger 6 for ITWF, a companion (meh), and spells.

I suggest Iron Will at level 1 because your Will Save will be terrible. Wisdom is a dump stat for you and your multiclassing will likely all feature poor Will Saves. Furthermore, feats that you really want (WFocus - Short Sword and Weapon Finesse have a BAB requirement). You'll get TWF for free. So you might as well knock out Iron Will early on. Combat Expertise is an option if you want the AC bonus, but I think the bonus to AC with 5 ranks in tumble and fighting defensively is sufficient, myself; Combat Expertise is only slightly more efficient, and you can't even use it until level 2.

I suggest the Ranger levels because they keep your skill points high, allow you to diversify your abilities (you're the trap man, the social monkey, the scout, AND the tracker, along with having a few useful Knowledge skills), give your BAB a boost, help out HP a bit, add CLW to your class spell list for wand use, and give you free TWF. Most importantly, Favored Enemy is a huge help. I'd select something that is immune to Sneak Attacks so that you won't be useless in those encounters: Undead, constructs, outsiders, and elementals are all decent choices. Otherwise, take something very common (it will help your skills too) like Humans or Goblinoids.

Whatever you do, do NOT build a TWF that uses Improved Feint. Improved Feint precludes you from full attacking. To TWF, you need to full attack. Thus, it is useless.

Ability scores:

STR - 10
DEX - 14
CON - 14 (You are in melee -- you need HP)
INT - 14 (You're a skill monkey)
WIS - 10
CHA - 8

That's 22 points. From there, it depends on your focus. For a social rogue, boost CHA. Otherwise you can dump it to 8. For a combat rogue, I'd bump Dex up to 15 or 16 and then put extra points into STR (DEX = To hit, AC; STR = damage, carrying capacity). For a scout rogue, I'd shoot WIS up to 14 (for Will saves and Spot/Listen) and boost Dex as high as I could.

Drop all stat bumps every 4th level into DEX, of course.
 

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