Ideas for Rogue in Heavy Armor

[Tarangil]

If you're decked out in heavy Clanky armor, perhaps maxing out your Bluff skill then make sure you take: IMPROVED FEINT You can then make a Bluff check to feint in combat as a move action, and get your sneaks in face to face by Dekeing your opponent.

 

[Nac_Mac_Feegle]

I am wondering why you feel your going to get lower armour than a fighter, the way the armour levles and max dex have been worked out, without magical aid on the armour, the maximum starting armour class wiht just armour and dex is 19

Leather is +1 AC max dex bonus +8
Full Plates is +8 AC max dex bonus +1

Almost all armour comes somewhere between those 2 (I think only 2 armour have a maximum of 18, +4/+4 respectively)

Now of course, starting out your highly unlikely to have +8 dex, but most can't afford full plate either, but if I can recall chain shirt correctly, its light armour, +4 armour and +4 dex (18 dex required for full usage) if however you have 20 dex (elf for example) you can go studded leather. Damn I wish I had a book at hand for the correct figures.

If you want to go wiht the heavy armour option, then everyone else has suggested far better things than I could, but as a rogue, I would be concentrating on dex, and even mithril plate will only allow you a +3 dex bonus, meaning base armour would cap at 21, but bracers of armour (+8) dont have any dex cap.

Also remember, you cant be caught flat footed as a higher levle rogue, so you always get your dex to your AC, but touch attacks will ignore your armour, but the armour will still hinder your dex for dodging them

Feegle Out

 

[Gnome]

Never thought of that before ... I guess I can't think of an advantage to do my wacky rogue tank afterall, then. Hmm....

 

[Nac_Mac_Feegle]

Never thought of that before ... I guess I can't think of an advantage to do my wacky rogue tank afterall, then. Hmm....

Sorry I hope I didnt come across as dimissing your idea, I wasnt.

If you have a skills heavy rogue, who doesnt have much dex (all wid/int/cha based skills) then heavy armour is almost definately better for you, but you may want to avoid combat entirely, and just use your sneak attack when you get the chance to flank.

It seems your idea of a heavy armour rogue isnt that waky, considering how many posts you got giving you support ideas.

Feegle Out

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Beyond the mechanics of an armored rogue, what is your PC concept?

Is he an adventuring locksmith? A con artist? A thug?

 

[Gnome]

Sorry I hope I didnt come across as dimissing your idea, I wasnt.

If you have a skills heavy rogue, who doesnt have much dex (all wid/int/cha based skills) then heavy armour is almost definately better for you, but you may want to avoid combat entirely, and just use your sneak attack when you get the chance to flank.

It seems your idea of a heavy armour rogue isnt that waky, considering how many posts you got giving you support ideas.

Feegle Out

Nah, you were just pointing out the mechanical aspects that I missed. I'd only want to do this if it game some benefit, though, otherwise it's only drawbacks for no good reason.

I guess the only advantage would be to be able to put less points in DEX (or even use it as a dump stat!), and put those into STR and CON to get a skills-heavy specialized semi-fighter (like a monk, kinda). I'll have to think about this a bit more.

 

[Gnome]

Beyond the mechanics of an armored rogue, what is your PC concept?

Is he an adventuring locksmith? A con artist? A thug?

Well, my original idea was a warforged with the adamantine body feat. I don't know how familiar with Eberron, but the warforged were built to be soldiers in the Last War. My idea was that this particular warforged decided he didn't want to fight, and deserted when he got the opportunity. Since he was designed to be a soldier, he has the built-in heavy armor (the adamantine body feat), but since he was on the run and in hiding to avoid figjting in the war, he picked-up the skills of a rogue along the way.

If I redid it with a dwarf (so that I could tumble), I'd have to come-up with a whole new character concept. I may decide to keep the warforged, even without tumble, just becausr I like the character concept so much.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I do like the PC concept...he reminds me of me- trained for one thing, trying to get by without doing it.

You could go in a lot of directions with this- he could take a few levels of Ftr (to reflect his original purpose), some Rogue (to reflect his original attempts to make his way in the world without being a warrior), and then...

All kinds of classes beckon. Psion, Cleric, Monk, Artificer...whatever it is that he decides is his thing.

Bard?

 

[maggot]

I like the concept. A fighter-rogue in full plate can limit his dex and thus spend more on strength. If your strength is greater than your dex, you don't need weapon finesse, so you save a feat right there. Plus, you can do more damage when facing opponents immune to sneak attacks.

I tried something similar with a barbarian-rogue. He could wear a breastplate, but the extra +1 AC was not offset by the loss of speed and tumble. He still needed a high dex. But the rage helped out against those immune to sneak. But overall, he ended up more rogue than anything else. I think having a 12 dex would make your character quite unique among rogues.

 

[nittanytbone]

Thanks, Feldspar; that was a great analysis and a good catch on the limitation to the tumble skill. Using a dwarf to get around that catch is a cool idea. The race fits the image of a more martial rogue, anyway. Here's a sample 28 point build. I'd probably start with rogue for the skill points, then add 1 level of fighter, then switch back to rogue, maybe occasionally throwing extra levels of fighter (maybe 4 over 20 levels to pick-up 3 feats and weapon specialization):

STR 14
DEX 12
CON 16
INT 14
WIS 8
CHA 12

Have you seen your will save with fighter/rogue levels? I think you might be much more surviveable with 10 Wis/10 Cha or 12 Wis/8 cha. I know its tough to "dump" cha if you're planning on investing in social skills, but you can always make up for that with skill points. Saves can be tougher to buff, and you have to spend a feat on it (Iron Will). Then again, if your DM never throws Hold Person at you, that can help, and the dwarf bonus vs spells also helps.