Quintessential Rogue

[Isida KepTukari]

Well, it's available for purchase by Mongoose. I've heard some good things about the Quintessential fighter, but how about the Quintessential Rogue?

I'm running a rogue right now, and my party's about to have some downtime. If there's anything like those fighting styles in it, I'd like to have it in my hot little hands before the next session. So... anyone own it? Heard anything about it?

 

[Psion]

I actually thought that the Quintessential Fighter was so-so, and probably will really only get use out of the mass combat system (which is very good.)

But I think that the Quintessential Rogue will be very good, because I have great trust in Mike Mearls as an author.

 

[Isida KepTukari]

I did read your review Psion, and thanks for such an even-handed review. However, even at an average rating, it'll still be a better material to cost ratio that the current WotC splatbooks.

(I actually like the splatbooks mind you, but the Quintessential series looks to be better priced)

 

[bitterman]

I think Psion is been hard on the book i have seen him give far worse books a better rating...but each to his own i do know where he is coming from on this...but still think against other books i have read it is far better then others out there.

 

[Psion]

I think Psion is been hard on the book i have seen him give far worse books a better rating...

If I gave them a better rating, they obviously weren't far worse books, by definition.

That said, I did almost give TQF a "4", on strength of the OMCS. But I realize that there are many people who are not likely to use it, thus the three. (Three is a passing grade, you know. How useful it is to you is entirely independant from my rating, which is inherently subjective.)

 

[bramadan]

How useful it is to you is entirely independant from my rating, which is inherently subjective.)

You slammed me once in the past for saying exactly this.
Glad we agree now
(Sorry, no insult intended, just could not resist...)

 

[Psion]

You slammed me once in the past for saying exactly this.

Uh, No. I "slammed" you you for rating down an excellent product on the basis that it didn't fit your specific nonstandard cosmology, which should not be a basis for any recommendation to anyone else.

When I say "my rating is subjective", I was specifically refering to the numerical rating. I try to analyze various points of a book, but in the end, which points are important to you may not be the same ones that are important to others. When I assign a weight to the various factors to cobble it down to a number. But really, each person has their own weights and properly, what is a 4 to one person could be a 2 to another.

But you will never see me rate a product down simply because it didn't fit the specifics of my campaign. Case in point from your precious, Mongoose. Chaos Magic totally does not work for the magic assumptions in my game; I already have a very exacting idea of what "primal magical energy" is and how it works. But I gave the product a 4 because it was interesting and well considered.

I repeat: applicability to ones personal campaign should NEVER be a criteria for making review recomendations to anyone else. Ever.

 

[mearls]

Well, it's available for purchase by Mongoose. I've heard some good things about the Quintessential fighter, but how about the Quintessential Rogue?

I'm running a rogue right now, and my party's about to have some downtime. If there's anything like those fighting styles in it, I'd like to have it in my hot little hands before the next session. So... anyone own it? Heard anything about it?

Want to start a thieves' guild?

It has rules for that. They're a little complicated, but I think that when you see the options they give you (you can basically start with a criminal syndicate in one city and expand to a worldwide organization) people will like it. In addition, if your rogue isn't a traditional thief, there's rules for trading companies, assassin's guilds, and spy rings.

Want to set a tripwire rigged crossbow to skewer anyone who tries to sneak up on your camp?

It has rules for that.

Need to design a poison to take out that drow cleric?

It has rules for that.

Plus new items, new magic items, new feats, new uses for almost every rogue class skill and then some, rules for building a hideout and keeping it a secret, rules for keeping track of your reputation and using aliases, and, of course, feats and prestige classes.

Oh, and your DM gets rules for figuring out how active the thieves' guild and city guard are in a city, and what a character gets out of guild membership.

There's also character concepts, sort of like kits but with an actual give and take of abilities. I also built a system for customizing the rogue character class that should be up on the Mongoose site at some point.

- Mearls

 

[bramadan]

Re: Re: Quintessential Rogue

I also built a system for customizing the rogue character class that should be up on the Mongoose site at some point.

- Mearls

I am *realy* curious to see this. I have been trying to make a class tht would best describe Indiana Jones. Sure I can change some skills but what do I do with the sneak attack ?

 

[mearls]

The system works a little bit like GURPS.

You choose the new class abilities you want to add, each of which has a point value. You then must remove class abilities, like sneak attack, that sum to the total points of abilities you bought.

My favorite wrinkle in the system is that you MUST drop the most expensive rogue class feature based on the points you spent on abilities. Thus, if you load up on free feats and abilities, you have to drop the rogue's skill points and sneak attack.

The character concepts in the book were sort of built with the system; they were all eyeballed and playtested. The system creates characters slightly weaker than the core rogue, but I felt that was a fair payoff for customization.

- Mearls