Do you make changes with 3e Rogues?

[MeepoTheMighty]

Such as Arterial Strike and Hamstring from Song and Silence?

Er, yes, that's what everyone's been talking about

 

[Vanye]

Personally, I thought that these were a nice idea, but too little, too late. By the time a rogue gets high enough up the feat chain to get them, they're not terribly useful. Or at least, not as useful as they need to be for anyone to actually want them, IME. I may just not be seeing them in full context, though.

6th level thief can qualify for hamstring, which means at 6th level he can get it. It's ALWAYS nice to be able to cut someone's movement in a non-magical manner...

Same for Arterial Strike. If you have a fighter/rogue, they can get it a tad sooner, since the only requirements are BAB +4 and Sneak Attack damage....


In fact, for a fighter/rogue type, these would be great-getting multiple attcks earlier than a straight up rogue allows you to get use of the ability and still use multiple attacks and get the benefits for that....

 

[Vanye]

Er, yes, that's what everyone's been talking about

2 posts hardly consists of "everyone", but YMMV....

 

[Felon]

The difference here is that your NPC who keeps those Skills maxed + Skill items isn't as diverse as your Rogue.

With Skill items, you can be kick-ass in one Skill and be decent in many other ones. Or you can be really kick-ass in one Skill. It's up to you.

Let's not dwell on skill items too much. Once magic gets into the picture, skills start to play second banana. Forget items that grant skill bonuses. How does Hide fair against a Ring of Invisibility? Silence hedges out Move Silently. Spiderclimb's better than plain Climb. Knock beats Open Lock. Magic trumps the mundane far more often than not.

 

[Fenes 2]

Let's not dwell on skill items too much. Once magic gets into the picture, skills start to play second banana. Forget items that grant skill bonuses. How does Hide fair against a Ring of Invisibility? Silence hedges out Move Silently. Spiderclimb's better than plain Climb. Knock beats Open Lock. Magic trumps the mundane far more often than not.

Which is why I run a low-magic, especially low-magic item campaign. Ionce had a thief in 2E, and was proud of the maxed climb walls skill... until the party fighter got boots that allowed him to just walk on walls.

 

[Ancalagon]

Ancalagon

 

[Felon]

Which is why I run a low-magic, especially low-magic item campaign. Ionce had a thief in 2E, and was proud of the maxed climb walls skill... until the party fighter got boots that allowed him to just walk on walls.

Yes, I favor fantasy games with moderate amounts of magic. The problem is, D&D really isn't the ideal game for that. After all, it's safe to say you'll still have spellcasters. Life's rough without clerics. So, when you cut down on magic items, you basically just reduce the game to magic-haves (those who have it as a class feature) and magic-have-nots (those who would normally use items as equalizers).

Case in point: it's kind of annoying to be a fighter watching that cleric with the War domain cast Divine Power, suddenly gaining a fighter's BAB, attack rate, hit points and an 18 Strength. And then cast Greater Magic Weapon on his favored weapon, and Magic Vestments on his suit of full plate. Meanwhile, you don't a magic weapon or magic armor or a neat belt of giant strength because the DM fancies his campaign as "low magic".

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Well, it's not really "low-magic" unless you limit the spell-lists, too.

 

[Victim]

Actually, Hide stacks up well against Invisibility against other powerful people. See Invisibility is just as cheap and easy as Invis, and can probably be put into an item cheaper. Many high level adversaries have see invis. While Hide doesn't let you walk through an exposed area, it also doesn't fail automatically if some chump has See Invis - or even detect magic - running.

Magic beats mundane, put it's easy to counter magic with magic. Then it comes down to skill versus skill.

However, skill items are so cheap that I put limits on them too. If you give a normal guy a +5 sword, he's more dangerous in combat, but still easily beaten. On the other hand, if you give him a +30 skill item, he's instantly one of the world's foremost experts in that area.

 

[Fenes 2]

Yes, I favor fantasy games with moderate amounts of magic. The problem is, D&D really isn't the ideal game for that. After all, it's safe to say you'll still have spellcasters. Life's rough without clerics. So, when you cut down on magic items, you basically just reduce the game to magic-haves (those who have it as a class feature) and magic-have-nots (those who would normally use items as equalizers).

Case in point: it's kind of annoying to be a fighter watching that cleric with the War domain cast Divine Power, suddenly gaining a fighter's BAB, attack rate, hit points and an 18 Strength. And then cast Greater Magic Weapon on his favored weapon, and Magic Vestments on his suit of full plate. Meanwhile, you don't a magic weapon or magic armor or a neat belt of giant strength because the DM fancies his campaign as "low magic".

Case in point: I just altered that spell so that it will only grant 18 strength. Now, GMW is my yardstick for the weapons of the melee classes, so that should not be an issue either (low magic, for me, does not mean that there are no powerful weapons, just that there are not too many) and I expect the casters to buff the other PCs at least as well as themselves - my sorceress will cast extended mage armor on anyone in need, not just herself, so again, there is not much of an unbalance. Instead the spellcasters have less spells left after buffing the party, reducing the amount of combat spells thrown around overall.