I'm thinking of playing a rogue

[Radiating Gnome]

Your party may expect you to pick locks or disable traps, but let the mage figure it out with a Knock spell, or just let a Summoned Creature open the door. Sure, there will be times when s/he may not be able to do that, but when you get to higher levels, it's more often than not a wasted skill.

The one thing I would say to this is that spells come in fairly limited supply, and you can use your skill all day. Don't make open locks/disarm traps a priority, but work at them some. If you have to choose between the two, short Open Locks, with which you can take 20, and work on disarm traps, with which you cannot, usually.

So you're priority list for skills should be something like this:
Tumble
Move Silent
Hide
Search (Need to find stuff)
Spot (Need a good spot if you're going to be able to take advantage of sneak attacks in a surprise round)
Use Magic Device

Then you can fill in with some options:
Bluff - if your rogue is any sort of b@lls@tter, this is what he wants.
Jump/Climb/Balance - coupled with Tumble to make the rogue as mobile as possible
Disable Device/Open Locks - see above
Pick Pocket - can also be used to hide items on your person, palm small items, etc, whcih can be very uselful.
Listen
Sense Motive - you need this to spot someone else's bluff
Disguise - all sorts of ways this can be handy
Escape artist - this is another good one to have -- escape artist can be used in lieu of a strength test when you're trying to get out of a grapple.

and so on . . .

See? Even with a high INT there just aren't enough skill points to go around.

-rg

 

[Pelosan Emperor]

Don't neglect skills such as Bluff, Sense Motive, Intimidate, Gather Information and Diplomacy.

Bluff not only works in social situations, but also for feints in combat and adds a situational bonus to Hide checks.

All of these skills are very useful in non-combat situations. If your party doesn't have a bard, the rogue might need to be the party's mouthpiece.

 

[mkarol]

Twin rogues are quite scarry, both sneak in and do some flanking sneak attacks.

Evasion + High Dex + high enough level means "Fireball me if you want." We use this often, with a wand of Fireball or necklace thereof, the rogues can go toe-to-toe with the Slow-Nasty and not care if a fireball comes launching in. Or team up with the Fighter with a little elemental damage protection.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Rogues mutli surprisingly well with the Monk (for mobililty), the Ranger (for battle power), or the Bard (for a few spells and Charisma!). Sorcerer isn't too bad either, and then you can start on the path to the Arcane Trickster, who's a pretty nice PrC.

Only give up hiding and sneaking if you don't care about getting that first sneak attack. If you combine this with a ranger's two weapons, or a Monk's flurry, etc. you can get several sneak attacks off right at the start of combat...sneak up next to 'em, then FULL ATTACK! With hide or move silent rolls in the 20-30 range, most creatures should be sitting ducks for this, and the Ranger actually increases your potential of surviving the retribution for this.

Otherwise, going with a bit of magic in the realm of the Bard or the Sorcerer isn't usually too bad an idea...why rely on the party wizard when you can invisible yourself. Combine it with haste, and some preparation, you can walk up to an enemy while invisible, full attack them, and turn invisible again (provoking an AoO, but you've got the Skill Points for Concentration).

Bluff is good, also in combat, since it can set up a sneaky attack quite, qutie well, with the feint action.

 

[d12]

Wow, I'm gonna copy and paste this thread after it dies and save it in a word file. Keep em coming.

Okay, I was thinking half-elf at first but for the back-story I have human works better. I think I'm going to do the following feats in this general order 1st Improved Initiative and Luck of the Heroes (because I see him as a lucky guy). 3rd Iron Will (because he's gonna have a strong sense of self and I HATE failing will saves). 6th Leadership (so I can have a "partner in crime" or just a big barbarian friend to use for flanking).

For skills at first I'm gonna do something like the following at first level. Assuming I roll a 14 on int I'll have 44 skill points.

Ranks
tumble 4
balance 3
Jump 4
Climb 4
Bluff 4
Hide 4
MS 4
Spot 4
Listen 3
Pick Pocket 4
Open lock 1
Disable device 1
Search 4

After that I'll keep tumble maxed out always, climb maxed out for awhile and put other ranks in skills I actually use alot.

 

[hunter2112]

I'm going to suggest something completely different:


Don't bother with Move Silently and Hide.


Did that get your attention? Neat. I far prefer playing rogues with Disable Device, Search, Spot, Listen, Tumble, Open Locks, and all of the Charisma skills. Bluff, Intimidate, Gather Information and Diplomacy are your friends. Why sneak up on the bad guys anyway? You're in a party. Be the spokesman, not the skulker.

Anyway, IMHO, of course.

I totally agree here. Last time I played a Rogue type I was fortunate enough that there was another player already doing the thief thing so I went full bore on tha Cha skills. I also multi-classed with Ftr levels on a pretty even basis over all though sometimes it went two Rog then two Ftr.

This guy could talk his way out of or into just about any situation and if it came down to combat, he still had decent hit points and BAB thanks to the FTR levels, not to mention the extra feats, but I also had the extra d6 or so as a bonus when I got to flank. I gave him a Rapier and worked towards improved critical on top of that. By the time he reached it his blade was Keened so he critted often. When you get one every other swing or so, even a rapier can do a lot of damage.

Rogues were never meant to be combat monsters IMO. The old backstab and the new sneak attack are nice but that's not really their "role" in a party. Since we didn't need a thief I got to be the mouthpiece for the group and Tyler quickly became my favorite character.

 

[Olive]

improved initative and bluff... all sneak attack, all the time!!! move first, and kill.

 

[hammymchamham]

I don't know if your campaign is going to be short or long running, low level, high level, low magic, or high magic. But if you can get the 30k gold, and a willing DM, a ring of blinking is your friend. with evasion and high reflex, it goes well with the "Fireball me if you want."

I have a 10th Rogue Deep Gnome (my DM did ECL 2 instead of 3), he has SR 21, Reflex of +15, and when blinking, has yet to take fireball (or other area effect) damage.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Rogues multiclass more effectively than almost any other class in the game.

Rogues multiclass with fighter for more hit points and feats.
Rogues multiclass with barbarian for more movement, hit points, rage, and better uncanny dodge progression.
Rogues multiclass with ranger for continued sneaky skills progression and ambidexterity/TWF
Rogues multiclass with wizard for Cat's Grace and Invisibility (color spray isn't bad either).
Rogues multiclass with sorceror for the same reason as with wizard.
Rogues multiclass with bard well as well.
Rogues can even multiclass with cleric (trickery domain is best) effectively for more hit points and spells.

Some things to remember:

On construction:
1. Put a good score in con. Rogues don't have many hit points so they tend to die quickly when facing tough monsters. Don't exacerbate the problem with a low con score.
2. If you're going to multiclass, don't waste rogue skill points on skills you can advance with your other classes. Especially so if you're going to multiclass into fighter (and to a lesser extent, cleric, barbarian, and ranger). Since you're unlikely to want more than 5 ranks of jump for the tumble synergy, pick those up with fighter levels--it's not as if there's much else to spend skill points on there anyway. Similarly, use fighter levels for climb and barbarian levels for listen and intimidate. Your rogue skill points can be put into other skills.
3. If you multiclass extensively (Rog 4/Ftr 2/Bbn 1/Rgr 1, for instance), take Iron Will. Your will save is the one most likely to lose out and it's not that good to start with. If you're multiclassing with fighter type levels, those can cover the fort save.
4. Pay attention to which skills you can take 20 on and which you can't. You put one point into Disable Device for instance and 4 points into Search. That's backwards. You can take 20 on search when you suspect a trap although if you're just advancing through the dungeon, you can take 10. Since you can take 20, a good search score is useful but not essential.

Disable Device, OTOH, usually has a DC of 20+ and sets off the trap if you fail by 5+. So, if you ever want to disable traps, you'll need to max out Disable Device.

In the same way, (as you apparently noticed), you can take 20 on Open Locks (although it'll take a while) and few locks have really high DCs. With one rank, a 16 dex, and masterwork thief's tools, you'll be hitting DC 26 which is good enough for most locks.


On playing:
1. Rogues require teamwork. In combat, you're effective when you're flanking or improved invisible, etc. You're not effective by yourself in a corner surrounded by three orcs. (That's where fighters and barbarians shine).

2. If there's another rogue and he's smart be prepared to delay ot the same initiative, move, and ready an action to attack when he moves into a flanking position. That way, you can both sneak attack, even if you don't begin the round in a flanking position.

3. Just because you can tumble behind them doesn't mean you should. I've seen more than a few rogues die because they tumbled into a pile of bad guys and thought they could get an impressive AC by fighting defensively (with their tumble ranks providing a bonus). If you end the round surrounded by bad guy fighters, they're likely to mash you. Especially if you stay there the next round because you surrounded one round and you can get a few more sneak attacks that way.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Rogues are great characters. Their utility depends a little bit on the style of campaign. High roleplaying, lots of hack n'slash, or dungeon delving with lots of traps and puzzles? You can customize a rogue to excel in any of those styles.

Consider the Han Solo type -- high Int and Cha, put skill points into interaction skills like Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Innuendo, etc.

Or the combat monster -- the Grey Mouser to your fighter's Fafhred -- lots of ranks in Tumble and Bluff, dual-wielding finessed weapons for maximum sneak attack damage while flanking.

Or the classic dungeoneering rogue -- search, disable device, climb, etc.

Or the scout/sniper -- hide, move silently, uses missile weapons from hiding to great advantage.

Some potential must have feats, depending on your style of rogue:

Improved Initiative (if you want to use sneak attack on flatfooted enemies -- a must)
Skill focus (any of your key rogue skills)
Weapon finesse (if you're a high-Dex low Str rogue)
Iron Will or Great Fortitude-- pump up those weak saves
AMB/TWF -- great for the flanking rogue: more sneak attacks!
Expertise: make yourself hard to hit and offset your light armor a bit
Dodge/Mobility/etc: great for the tumbler -- dive through melee and go for teh kill on the wizard in the enemy's back ranks!

Have fun!