Technik4 said:
Re: Jay Omega's Usefulness
Generally, minimal.
I think youre right on many accounts, but not all. Listen OR Spot is very very important to a rogue. If you are surprised you still retain your dex, etc, however since the enemy is acting BEFORE you, there is no chance of getting a round 1 sneak attack, which is a pretty signature rogue thing to do. Thus, you may as well not bother with improved initiative.
I feel rogues are active, not reactive. If you are alone, you need to out-Hide your target. If he doesn't see you, you just pass each other in the night. At a minimum, you should be able to avoid a surprise round, and make use of your Improved Initiative in the normal 1st round of combat. Alternately, if you're with your party, the foe spots and ambushes them, and then you step in for the flanking sneak attack.* Either way, good Hide and Move Silently trump good Spot and Listen. And you need Dex, while Wis is a roguish dump stat, so you're a few points ahead on those grounds already.
* - the party I'm currently DMing is 3 rogues, a fairly-sneaky monk, and a fighter/paladin. (One of the rogues has a low-level cleric follower for extra healing.) The plate-mailed-guy-as-bait technique is a fine science with them.
While gather information and diplomacy can be roleplayed, in most 3e modules there are certain DCs that must be beat for info. Also, you appear to count on a paladin or bard, neither of which have been common in my games (which doesn't mean squat, just that it seems weird to me).
I haven't played modules since 1st edition, so there's part of my weirdness. And any module that requires a certain Gather Information roll to succeed is a darn poorly-written module... since I've played in groups without rogues, before, too.
DCs for these skills aren't generally high, and they can be used untrained. For diplomacy, let the Cleric try. For Gather Info, set the whole party loose for an evening; chances are someone will roll high.
Again, while useful, these skills just aren't top-8. They're "nice to have", not life-or-death necessary or often-used.
I also think you under-rate Escape Artist, imo, it almost makes the top 8 (right after Use Magic Device, on the power route) as a rogue getting grappled or tied up is usually a dead or hand-less rogue thereafter.
Again, action, not reaction. High dex, defensive fighting, tumble, hide, move silently. Don't get caught, don't get grappled. If you get grappled, you fight with light weapons anyway, just stab the guy. If his grappling ability is that good, he'll just grapple you again after you escape, anyway. And, a grapple check is only a few points worse than an escape artist check if you really need to try to escape.
If you're imprisoned, the escape artist check isn't likely to help. You're still in a cell with no equipment. You need to work harder ahead of this; hide, bluff. And any DM that cuts hands off characters (remember, he doesn't have ranks in Pick Pockets
) is a pretty poor DM. It's harder to regrow a hand than it is to be raised from the dead. So, either it's equivalent to a fine--you just pay the cleric rather than the magistrate--or it's the same as a death sentence, since a character of any class is useless without hands.
I do agree with you to a certain extent; I'd probably put this skill 10th on the list, or say that after gaining a few ranks in Swim (enough that one can Take 10 and still swim with a full load of equipment), one should start taking ranks of Escape Artist. But the original poster wanted just 8 skills, so I'm playing by his rules.
For the record, 9th would be Open Locks. Just for the situations when you don't have the ability to bash open the locked door. (Badly-written modules with solid-Unobtanium doors leading to teleport-shielded rooms with no ventilation, which contain something critical to the quest.) I wouldn't split Open Locks with Swim, because you need a lot of ranks to be worthwhile. (That super-door doesn't likely have a mere DC20 lock on it.)
You left jump out completely, but I imagine you'd say "see climb". While this is mostly true, jumping can be invaluable (and very inexpensive at low levels, see Ring of Jumping) and provides good synergy with tumble.
Got it in one. Movement skills are better served by magic, or by letting strong people do the work for you. And if you do have a +30 ring of Jumping, the 4 or 5 extra points from ranks just don't seem like much help.
Sense Motive is also a good skill that doesnt get a lot of play. You can't just whip out a scroll of detect thoughts when a noble is interrogtating you (or vice versa) and you certainly can get expected to have a detect magic cast in your area if the noble is important. In either case, sense motive reveals their true nature non-magically.
Again, it's useful, but not nearly top 8. Probably 11th, though. It's an opposed roll, so if you're dealing with someone as powerful as you (high level noble), you're likely to fail (admittedly, the save on Detect Thoughts is also likely to cause you to fail.) The combination of being able to role-play the interaction, plus the fact that the skill is seldom used compared to the others, and that you need to keep it maxed for it to be useful against equal-level "threats", keeps it well out of the top 8, IMHO. You're better served by using Detect Thoughts at the time, or clerical Divination magic after the fact.
EDIT: I forgot to mention, Spot and Listen are 12th and 13th on the important skill list, so now this post covers what you "need" for an 18-Int human rogue, if you just want to keep skills maxed out.
