Feat builds for rogues

[ph0rk]

Hmm, the single class rogue gets no love? I´m in the camp that dislikes multiclassing. Why? Maxed UMD (and nice skills like spot, listen, search, move silently, hide) to use those higher level scrolls. So what if a monster is immune to sneak attack, just draw a wand or a scroll. They cost money, but the spell-casting classes use and buy them, too. If you have a character in the party that has a feat to create them even better.

You can quite easily keep UMD maxed while taking 1 ranger level for each two rogue levels, for example. As I said in my above post, if you choose which skills will be important to you beforehand, it will be a simple thing to multiclass and keep those skills maxed.

Yes, a rogue 5/ranger 2/Barbarian 3 could have 10 ranks in UMD.

Does the Fast Movement from the barbarian class stack with other Fast Movement class abilities (e.g., dervish)?

The barbarian bonus is unnamed, and all unnamed bonuses stack (provided they are not effects of the same spell, yadda yadda)

I don't think the feat you mentioned (allowing sneak attacks against undead) is WotC, and even so, that still leaves constructs, oozes, and BBEG's wearing armor/bracers of heavy fortification.


Rogues, much like Fighters, are more like a blending class to me than anything else - those of you that smoke pipe tobacco would know what I mean. Who the hell smokes a bowl of 100% Latakia?

I think rogues have a good bit more going for them than a fighter though, and would pick ranger or barbarian (or both) to multi with a rogue, as both are (like the rogue) lightly-armored specialists.

 

[Thanee]

Even a Rogue 1 / Ranger 19 could have all those skills maxed.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Thanee]

I think rogues have a good bit more going for them than a fighter though, and would pick ranger or barbarian (or both) to multi with a rogue, as both are (like the rogue) lightly-armored specialists.

Heh. My character in a PbP here is Barbarian/Ranger/Rogue.

First I started with only Barbarian and Rogue, but since it made no sense backgroundwise to have the first level as a Rogue, I put the Ranger in, which worked great in context of the background I had in mind, and I still got decent skills (it's mainly a skill-based character with some fighting capability, so the 1st level bonus is quite crucial, of course).

Bye
Thanee

 

[ph0rk]

Heh. My character in a PbP here is Barbarian/Ranger/Rogue.

First I started with only Barbarian and Rogue, but since it made no sense backgroundwise to have the first level as a Rogue, I put the Ranger in, which worked great in context of the background I had in mind, and I still got decent skills (it's mainly a skill-based character with some fighting capability, so the 1st level bonus is quite crucial, of course).

If you use the fixed hp per die rules from the dmg (and most rpga living games, i believe) then the extra hp from starting with a barbarian level almost outweighs the skills bonus starting as a rogue gives you.


assuming you're using a moderate pointbuy and don't have 3 18's, that is.

 

[Longbow]

When you multiclass with Ranger it´s not so hard to keep vital Rogue skills maxxed and that´s a very good multiclass option. With other classes there isn´t so much synergy (Bard would be good, too). Maybe you want some other skills for your character with high ranks (social skills like Bluff come to mind, Forgery, Knowledge Local can be nice; and don´t forget the classic rogue skills like Disable Device, Sleight of Hand and Open Lock) so you stay single class. But it depends on the campaign if those skills are valuable.

I have a 9th level Halfling Rogue and was often tempted to take some levels in another class. But then I wouldn´t get access to the Rogue special abilities or raise the many skills I wanted. Not all special abilities are that valuable but things like Opportunist sound very nice if sneak attack works.

I agree that Rogue is very good for multiclassing but find it viable as a single 20 level class.

 

[Thanee]

Noone says, that rogues are not viable.

I just say, basically, that rogues are generally 'better' overall, if they're multiclassed, and that they are perfectly suited for multiclassing.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Al]

Best Buy at mid-to-high level: Wand of Greater Invisibility (and keep UMD maxed).

This is an incredibly useful tool for the rogue. In the surprise round, move adjacent to your foe but don't attack. In round 1, full attack (TWF) against an opponent which is flatfooted with a +2. A mid-to-high level build with all the respective TWF feats can easily deal upward of 100+ points of damage per round, and when you add sneak attack feats, Speed weapons and a third iterative attack then you can get to 200+ without too much trouble.