Salvaging a Friend's Rogue

Kyros Pyralis

First Post
I have been playing a campaign with a relatively new player and he's not too happy with his character. I'm not the DM, so I am not omnipotent in this situation.

He is a human and currently has the following stats:
STR 16
DEX 18
CON 10
INT 11
WIS 11
CHA 14

We are level 6-7, and he has dodge, mobility, weapon focus(rapier), and improved toughness.

I have been trying to find a good PrC for him but the better ones like Invisible Blade are a bit out of his reach. He has expressed interest in becoming an assassin, but his int score will make him somewhat useless.

He keeps dying without doing anything useful and is becoming bored. What can be done to salvage his class?
 

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What books are allowed? Can he retrain his feat selections, given that the DM is probably sympathetic towards him?

Were those his rolled stats, or point buy? If rolled, can he switch them around? Con 14 would be more useful than Cha 14. If point buy, he WAAAY overpaid for those hih scores, if he can take 2 off of Dex, he could greatly boost other stats.

General tips:

Invisible Blade is not a "good" prestige class. And if you search, the author himself said the pre-reqs were screwed up along with the class and posted a much more sensible 10-level version.

If a melee rogue, Two Weapon Fighting. Whenever you can. More attacks is more sneak attacks. Also, get Staggering Strike from C.Adventurer as soon as you qualify for it. It makes a rogue twice as survivable in melee, at least.

If Craven feat is an option (from Champions of Ruin)...ALWAYS take it. That feat is to rogues almost...well...still not even close, but pretty good... as Natural Spell is to Druids. +1 SA damage per HD (which DOES multiply on a critical hit) for a loss of a feat and -2 saves against fear. At his current level, it's "only" an effective +2d6 damage (2d6 averages a result of 7), but it only gets stronger with levels.

Penetrating Strike variant from Dungeonscape, because half SA damage is better than none when fighting things immune to it. Trapsense isn't very good, so it's a wonderful trade.
 

Well, right off the bat, the 16 STR score indicates to me that he's a 'fightin' rogue which may well be why he's dying all the time. Is he properly flanking, hiding, etc? Or did he take rogue because he likes to steal things and make the occasional huge amount of damage?
I imagine it's more of a player problem than a character problem.
Let's hear from the build experts.
 

If a melee rogue, Two Weapon Fighting. Whenever you can. More attacks is more sneak attacks. Also, get Staggering Strike from C.Adventurer as soon as you qualify for it. It makes a rogue twice as survivable in melee, at least.

Especially if you can convince your DM to treat rapier as a light weapon.
 

For usable books, we have PH, PH2, DMG, and SC, but some of us have been using various online sources. Basically, anything not broken/abusive of the rules is allowed.

We play with rolled stats, and i'm not sure about the DM allowing retraining, but I'm sure that he won't be too strict.

The rogue has been spending the game trying to sleep with any female NPC. As for TWF, he's decided that he wants to use a shield instead. Craven would help him a lot, but that will require 3 more levels for him to get it, if we can't retrain. Right now he has mummy-rot, we're in the middle of a ruined island 2 months away from the nearest city, and I have only 4 levels in Cleric (no Remove Curse spell), so he may die and make a new character. On that note, I was thinking about suggesting Scout (Complete Adventurer) since he was going for the spring attack route. What are your thoughts on the way the 2 classes fill the role of skill-monkey/damager?
 
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Also, i'm somewhat interested in the 10-level Invisible Blade version. From my time playing as a Ninja, I have found that the free action feint is invauable, although I do agree that the pre-reqs are odd.
 
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On that note, I was thinking about suggesting Scout (Complete Adventurer) since he was going for the spring attack route. What are your thoughts on the way the 2 classes fill the role of skill-monkey/damager?
If he's dead set on the Spring Attack, he should take Expeditious Dodge from Races of the Wild (I think) which is better than ordinary Dodge if you're going to be running around.
 

I really don't think Invisible Blade is worth it, even the 10 level version, as I'm sure the errata that you can only free action feint once/round applies even to that "unofficial" version. And the int to AC is worthless and I really hate having SA progression limited ONLY to dagger type weapons and melee. If you want "free" action feinting, get Improved Feint feat and be a caster/rogue combo (using Unseen Seer from C.Mage and Arcane Trickster from DMG to make it work). There's a level 1 spell called Insightful Feint in the Spell Compendium. Swift action to cast, and if you have the feat, makes feinting a free action that round (still only for one feint, I think).

I never liked feinting at all, though. The fact enemies add BAB and actual skill bonus made it supremely unattractive to me, and the whole one attack/round thing is just the turd-y icing on the garbage cake. Just get flanking. Summon Monster and even better the Persistent Blade (Spell Compendium) spells or wands work wonderfully. And if you do a Swordsage dip (I love doing that as a rogue), Distracting Ember as a swift action. If you have melee allies, flanking is even easier, of course.

So, rolled stats...was it a 17 dex raised to 18 at level 4? Just curious. If he can do a complete retrain:
*Get rid of ALL of his feats, they're all bad, sorry. New low level feat wish list: Craven, Two Weapon Fighting, Staggering Strike, Weapon Finesse (see below), Daring Outlaw (see below)
Change to Str 11, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 11, Wis 10, Cha 16. That's assuming he is emphatic about being a "player" if you know what I mean. Otherwise, give the 16 to Con or Int, give the 14 to whichever of those two didn't get the 16, and a 11 for Charisma. I must say...his rolled stats are extremely inefficient for a multiple ability dependent class like rogue. They're much better caster stats (18 in casting stat, 16 in con, who cares about the rest?) On the plus side, if he's willing to do Rogue/Caster, he can just make Dex and the casting stat his highest and fare pretty well.
*Class build: At least 3 in Swashbuckler, at least 4 in Rogue (Uncanny Dodge...accept no substitutes). I like to dip Swordage 2 levels at levels 9-10, but that's fully up to you and what you can get away with without xp penalties.
Swash gives you a d10 HD and full BAB, but will crush your skills. Advance high in this if he mostly wants to melee stuff. 3 levels gives you Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat, Intelligence to damage (STRONGLY consider dropping cha to have higher Int), and probably something else I'm forgetting. The Daring Outlaw feat lets you treat these levels as rogue for sneak attack progression, so if you don't care about being skillful, you lose basically nothing by staying swashbuckler. Myself, I think the d6 HD and medium BAB is worth the rogue class features...


Scout: It's an ok class, it can't compare at all with a rogue for damage, generally. If you're making a melee scout, you basically want pounce and to make a charge build. The easiest way to get pounce is Lion Totem Barbarian 1 (C.Champion). I really don't see the point in a Spring Attack scout. if you're just going to try and keep away from melee and make a single attack each round, why not just be a ranged scout to begin with? At least a ranged scout has options to full attack skirmish and still avoid melee. Just find ways to move 10 ft without spending a move action. Allied spellcaster casting Slide on you, Boots of Sidestepping, Chronocharm of the Horizon Walker (which you can explicitly wear many times to get multiple uses/day), Travel Devotion feat with a Cleric dip...
 



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