Rogue 16th lvl Help

[shulamyth]

So intentionally these characters we were making were supposed to be for a silly comic idea and someone thought that they would make it a campaign. I think he forgot that these characters were mainly built for story purposes--I'm altering mine slightly because there is no way she would survive a 3.5, 16th lvl campaign.

He's forcing Good alignment--no Neutral or Evil. Party consists of a changeling warlock, an illumian sorcerer/argent savant, Half-Celestial elf monk/swashbuckler, and a human cleric/wizard/necromancer.

My character concept is a changeling rogue with bloodline in silver dragon from Unearthed Arcana (story purposes). We have 32 point buy. Regretfully this is a trap heavy DM so no changeling substitution and I know none of the spell casters will have detect traps prepared. I need help with Magic Item buying as well. She's probably going to be the skill monkey and possible spy/spokes person, as well as melee damage--probably dependent on sneak attack.

I'm probably also going to have to have a cohort (either heal bot or tank) because no one else is getting a cohort. I would like a flying mount cohort because I'm the only one that doesn't have some way to fly--however this isn't required.

Race: Changeling Rogue
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Levels: Rogue 10/Swashbuckler 3/Silver Dragon Bloodline 3

Str 10 (9+1 BL)
Dex 24 (17+3lvl+Gloves of Dex 4)
Con 17 (10+1BL+Amulet of Health +6)
Int 16 (16)
Wis 10 (10)
Cha 18 (12+1BL+1lvl+Cloak of Cha +4)

Feats and Flaws
Inattentive(flaw)
Shaky(flaw)
Alertness(BL)
Power Attack(BL)
Weapon Finesse (Swashbuckler)
Two weapon fighting
Improved Two weapon fighting
Improved Weapon Finesse
Daring Outlaw
Able Learner
Savvy Rogue (either opportunist, skill mastery, or another feat) or Force of Personality
Craven
Leadership --Still HEAVILY questioning this one--or Force of Personality
Racial Emulation

Special Rogue Ability: Improved Evasion

Skills: haven't gotten round to them

Items--we have 260k to spend

Magical:
Ghost Touch +1, Ghost strike+1, Demolition Crystal Rapier (This DM tends to give out crap tons of Undead and Constructs.)
Sword of Subtley
Mithril Shirt of Ghost Touch +3, Ghost Ward +1, Crystal of Mind Cloaking, Mobility +1 (or some random +1 armor enhancing thing)
Ring of Protection +4
Ring of Blinking

Gloves of Dex +4
Amulet of Health +6
Cloak of Cha +4

Wand Bracelet
(Awesome Wand suggestions anyone?)

Bag of Endless Caltrops
Portable Hole
Heward HandyHaversack (?)
Goggles of DragonVision (?)

That's all I have at the moment. I'm not so great at building high level characters--mostly due to magic item buying and stats. So any help or suggestions would be great!!

 

[Shin Okada]

In a higher-level campaign, one of the rogue's biggest strength is having Use Magic Device as a class skill. Max-out UMD. 19 rank +4 Cha = 23. It is already enough to auto-activate spell trigger items (wands and staffs) and caster level 4 scroll. Maybe you can raise your UMD more by investing a feat or two.

Get a wand or scroll of Divine Insight (Complete Divine or Spell Compendium). This spell is the best friend of a skill monkey. A CL 10 wand of Divine Insight will be ideal, I guess.

A rogue can also enjoy using scrolls of some divination or illusion spells.

If you are to use scrolls, give Twilight property (-10% spell miss chanse) to your Mithral Chain Shirt. Or, maybe you can instead use a pair of Bracers of Armor.

Consider using some magic Mithral Buckler and take Improved Buckler Defense feat from Complete Warrior. Or, maybe you can simply buy an Animated Mithral Buckler. Shield bonus is good for raising your AC and usually much cheaper than other methods.

 

[shulamyth]

Ooo. Thanks I completely forgot about that arcane spell failure. I plan on maxing out UMD. That skill is way to useful to squander in campaigns. However I've only used wands--usually the wizard/sorcerer swipe all the scrolls--It mentions that I have to be able to decipher the writing, would that still be required if I use UMD?. Found it

I thought about getting bracers of armor, but I need the ghost touch enhancement to effectively use my ring of blinking for better flanking purposes.

Would there be any penalties for using the buckler while TWF?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

You could always multiclass into something else and pick up Trapfinding, also. Right now I'm playing a Changeling Rogue/Factotum, so the latter class gave me back trapfinding anyway.

Way to fly: The boots in the DMG are cheap enough, and you can use wands and scrolls.

Silver Dragon Bloodline: Why? "Story purposes" is nice and all, but that's 3 levels devoted to something that really doesn't help your rogue abilities at all. There's less expensive draconic heritage templates and such out there.

Wand suggestions:
Acid Splash (no SR, touch attach, acid damage, and cheap as a cantrip)
Ray of Frost (as above, but with SR allowed and 1.5x damage to fire creatures)
Grease (balancing = flatfooted; lasts round/level, so don't get it at CL 1)
Persistent Blade [SpC] (Aside from SR, an inescapable round/level debuff to leave target always flanked)
Greater Invisibility (I'd say it's worth the cost; then again, losts of stuff has True Seeing by now)
Heroics [SpC] (Make a list of useful Fighter feats you qualify for, including ToB maneuvers, use as needed)

If the DM unwisely follows Rules Compendium (swift action spells now take a swift to activate as a wand, and so forth):
Golem Strike [SpC]
Gravestrike [SpC]
Vinestrike [SpC]
Wraithstrike [SpC] (all attacks are touch attacks for 1 round; stupidly broken)
Shock and Awe [SpC] (Immedite action in surprise round to give -10 to foes' init rolls)
Nerveskitter [SpC] (Immediate action for +5 on your Init roll...)
Critical Strike [SpC] (Swift for +1d6 SA and +4 to confirm crits in melee for 1 round)

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

I thought about getting bracers of armor, but I need the ghost touch enhancement to effectively use my ring of blinking for better flanking purposes.

Would there be any penalties for using the buckler while TWF?

There are cheaper means to get sneak attack than a ring of blinking, especially as a melee rogue.

For the buckler, you'd suffer the -1 to hit on the off-hand attack and lose the buckler's AC on a round you attacked with that hand. The Improved Buckler Defense feat (C.Warrior) would let you retain the AC bonus. But...by level 16 there's really no reason at all to not just get an animated heavy shield instead.

 

[shulamyth]

Lots of awesome suggestions and I greatly thank you.

If I added factotum should I take two levels of it to counter the xp (because of swashbucker) penalty I would incur for multiclassing or should I take the PrC "Temple Raider of Olidammara" from complete divine. I won't be able to cast the spells due to my low wisdom (detect law, detect secret doors, disguise self, invisibility to undead, obscuring mist, protection from law.) So the only benefit of dipping into it would be the trapfinding.

You could always multiclass into something else and pick up Trapfinding, also. Right now I'm playing a Changeling Rogue/Factotum, so the latter class gave me back trapfinding anyway.

When do factotums get trapfinding? --I can't find my dungeonscape book at the moment =[ so you'll have to remind me.--because that really would be awesome.

Heroics [SpC] (Make a list of useful Fighter feats you qualify for, including ToB maneuvers, use as needed)

That is a nasty spell, and I like it. I think me and the sorcerer are going to abuse that spell.

If the DM unwisely follows Rules Compendium (swift action spells now take a swift to activate as a wand, and so forth):

HIGHLY doubt he'll go for that unless its in the core errata.

For the buckler, you'd suffer the -1 to hit on the off-hand attack and lose the buckler's AC on a round you attacked with that hand. The Improved Buckler Defense feat (C.Warrior) would let you retain the AC bonus. But...by level 16 there's really no reason at all to not just get an animated heavy shield instead.

Even if it's animated I still take all the penalties don't I? (-2 ACh, 15% ASF) I'm worried about Spell Failure for the purposes of wands and scrolls.

Silver Dragon Bloodline: Why? "Story purposes" is nice and all, but that's 3 levels devoted to something that really doesn't help your rogue abilities at all. There's less expensive draconic heritage templates and such out there.

Oh just remembered Draconic characters. That gives me two more levels and better buffs to my stats!

There are cheaper means to get sneak attack than a ring of blinking, especially as a melee rogue.

Such as? With Blink they are denied their dex, and they have either a 50% miss chance or 20%. I have a weapon and armor that gets rid of the penalities--my 20% miss chance and the Armor bonus.

 

[Dandu]

If the DM unwisely follows Rules Compendium (swift action spells now take a swift to activate as a wand, and so forth)

How is this unwise? Because it lets non-casters have nice things?

Anyways, core is silent on whether activating wands is a standard action or the same type of action as the spell, because all core spells with the exception of Feather Fall take one standard action or more to cast, and the concept of Swift and Immediate actions was introduced after Core.

You DM should bow before the Rules Compendium.

Alternatively, if he's going to be mindlessly RAW about it, come talk to me about arcane trickery.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

How is this unwise? Because it lets non-casters have nice things?

Because it's unbalanced to get quick cast time spells for use on cheap magic items. Many great swift/immediate spells are also low level, and the only real thing keeping them under control is the fact that you can only use them so often as you have the actual spell slots. Especially at the lower levels these spells are available, a character may genuinely not have anything to do with his swift/immediate actions other than such spells. Even at higher levels, once the spells become available on wands, they just become such ridiculous no-brainers to get. Seriously, if you can get a 50 charge wand of Nerveskitter and actually use the wand as the same action as the spell, there is NO reason to ever NOT burn a charge for the sweet +5 initiative. In fact, the vast majority of swift action spells don't really care one lick what the CL is, which makes them even better as magic items. While some standard action spells also fit the "best to just get a wand of it" category -- True Casting and Benign Transposition, for example -- I'd dare say ~90% of the swift action spells fall into this category.

Anyways, core is silent on whether activating wands is a standard action or the same type of action as the spell, because all core spells with the exception of Feather Fall take one standard action or more to cast, and the concept of Swift and Immediate actions was introduced after Core.

Wands :: d20srd.org
"Wands use the spell trigger activation method, so casting a spell from a wand is usually a standard action that doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity. (If the spell being cast, however, has a longer casting time than 1 standard action, it takes that long to cast the spell from a wand.)"

Magic Item Basics :: d20srd.org
"Activating a spell trigger item is a standard action and does not provoke attacks of opportunity."

...Seems pretty freakin' clear-cut to me... Just because the RC went and completely changed the rules doesn't suddenly make the original DMG information unclear.

You DM should bow before the Rules Compendium.

Well, just thinking about the RC causes me to want to bow down and vomit...

Alternatively, if he's going to be mindlessly RAW about it, come talk to me about arcane trickery.

So if something non-core turns out to be broken, the solution is to find something in core that's also broken and thus justify the non-core broken rule/item/feat/etc... is really ok after all? Mindlessly RAW would be only observing precisely what the rules say "death" means for a character, and nothing more. When the rules explicitly, in multiple places, tell you flat out "this is a standard action," you're not mindlessly following the RAW.

 

[Dandu]

Because it's unbalanced to get quick cast time spells for use on cheap magic items. Many great swift/immediate spells are also low level, and the only real thing keeping them under control is the fact that you can only use them so often as you have the actual spell slots.

I disagree. Please, show me how they are unbalanced.

Especially at the lower levels these spells are available, a character may genuinely not have anything to do with his swift/immediate actions other than such spells. Even at higher levels, once the spells become available on wands, they just become such ridiculous no-brainers to get. Seriously, if you can get a 50 charge wand of Nerveskitter and actually use the wand as the same action as the spell, there is NO reason to ever NOT burn a charge for the sweet +5 initiative.

If you're a non caster (as in this case), then you have to make a UMD check and hope to not roll a 1 and ruin your connection with the wand. You also have to spend money on it.

Honestly, if someone's invested time and money on UMD, I'd say let them have the nice thing. And if it's a caster, well you have bigger problems to worry about than a +5 to initiative. Which, incidentally, any sorcerer will be able to throw out multiple times over the course of the average adventuring day. Specialist wizards too.

In fact, the vast majority of swift action spells don't really care one lick what the CL is, which makes them even better as magic items. While some standard action spells also fit the "best to just get a wand of it" category -- True Casting and Benign Transposition, for example -- I'd dare say ~90% of the swift action spells fall into this category.

I appreciate your opinion, but I do not see them as inherently unbalancing. I do not think the majority of swift action spells rely on a limited amount of uses per day to remain balanced. Examples: Swift Expeditious Retreat, Swift Fly.

...Seems pretty freakin' clear-cut to me... Just because the RC went and completely changed the rules doesn't suddenly make the original DMG information unclear.

Wands :: d20srd.org
"Wands use the spell trigger activation method, so casting a spell from a wand is usually a standard action that doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity. (If the spell being cast, however, has a longer casting time than 1 standard action, it takes that long to cast the spell from a wand.)"

So, we know from this that getting a spell from a wand usually takes 1 standard action. More if its casting time is longer than one round. The Core rules are silent on what happens if it is less than one round.

So if something non-core turns out to be broken, the solution is to find something in core that's also broken and thus justify the non-core broken rule/item/feat/etc... is really ok after all?

You've lost me. Arcane Tricksters aren't broken. Lose 3-4 caster levels in order to deal a bit of sneak attack damage is pretty middling.

Mindlessly RAW would be only observing precisely what the rules say "death" means for a character, and nothing more.

You mean... losing the soul, body rotting, etc?

When the rules explicitly, in multiple places, tell you flat out "this is a standard action," you're not mindlessly following the RAW.

What does the word "usually" mean, StreamoftheSky?

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

What does the word "usually" mean, StreamoftheSky?

It means it's usually a standard action, except when the spell stored takes a longer time than that to cast. The quoted rules say so. One part specifically says standard action. The other says it's usually a standard, and then immediately afterwards goes on to say when it's not a standard action.

And Feather Fall was not the only spell in core faster than a standard action to cast. Any quickened spell also fell into this category, which could then be put into magic items. Granted, since wands specifically stop at spell level 4, you couldn't get a quickened wand by RAW. But staves were spell trigger items also that allowed up to level 9 spells. So the designers probably considered the issue.

As for arcane trickery...I figured you were giving some generic name to a trick or series of tricks to powergame with. Not the literal Arcane Trickster class. Sorry.