Stealth Help

[Jmacc]

My first character I made when learning to play 3.5 wasn't the most optimized and I'm looking for ways to hopefully get him on the right track. He's currently a lvl 3 Half Elf Rogue.
Stats are
14 Str
18 Dex
14 Con
12 Int
10 Wis
18 Cha
Feats are Weapon finesse, 2 weapon fighting, and Negotiator (given free)

The rest of the party is made up of a Ranger, Savage Bard/Fighter, Cleric, and Wizzard.
This is a very low magic campaign and all 3.5 books are in, except Dragonlance and ToB. (Otherwise I would have gone swordsage) I'm kinda leaning towards Dervish but with weapon finesse that might not be the best. Are there any feats that can make a falchion a light weapon so I can two hand fight with them like my short swords and still go Dervish? Any help with this build would be greatly appreciated.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Welcome to ENWorld!

How much you should focus on melee probably depends on whether the ranger is archery or TWF. The bard/fighter will likely be a secondary melee combatant already, so if the ranger's also in melee, you might not be needed too much for that role (a buffed cleric can also melee well).

When you say low magic, do you mean only few magic items? Or did the DM also weaken the spellcasting classes? If the former...ouch...a lot of new DMs seem to think less magic items = low magic, when in reality it just hurts the non-casters the most, since they can't just provide magical effects from their class. Specifically to you, your use magic device skill won't be nearly as useful as a normal game. Normally, with UMD allowing you to apply sneak attack damage to touch spells and turn them into that spell's energy type (not to mention hitting flatfooted touch AC ), SA is a great thing to have. Spell items can also help you get sneak attack to begin with -- Persistent Blade, a level 1 Spell Compendium spell that leaves the target flanked without a save for one round/level...Grease (if they don't have 5 balance ranks, a creature is flatfooted while balancing)....

If you won't be able to stock up on scrolls and wands, you might consider dropping SA altogether, and instead getting Fighter bonus feats (originally found in Unearthed Arcana). You may not be able to get fighter-only feats like Weapon Specialization, but you can still use those plethora of feats to make a build focused on combat maneuvers like tripping, grappling, etc... Many of these maneuvers hit touch AC or don't even have to roll to hit (bull rush, for example), so your medium BAB won't hurt. All that really matters is being as large as possible, having a big strength score, and lots of feats to add stuff to your maneuver (like the extra attack from improved trip; or combining Knockback (Races of Stone, need a large race to take) with Shock Trooper (C.Warrior) to charge into someone, hit for massive power attack damage, "home run bat" him into another enemy, and knock them both down like you're bowling; and so on...)

If it is a low magic items game, have you considered Facototem from Dungeonscape? That's a rogue-like class with some minor spellcasting and lots of other side abilities that I think would do well in a no magic items game. It has very poor sneak attack, though. (It has an option to spend the class's per encounter resource, inspiration points, to get SA, but the amount is so woefully low it's never really worth it.) Early on in the class, it lets you add int to all combat maneuvers, which could be interesting.

 

[Jmacc]

Thanks!
By low magic I meant few magic items. Spell casters havent been weakened. Sorry about the vagueness there. The Ranger uses his bow whenever e can and then has a bastard sword for when he drops his bow. I was thinking about the use magic device with like scrolls and stuff. But those are very few and far between. I havent ruled out a few levels in scout for some extra feats and the skirmish, plus fast movement would be nice. I am not familiar with Facototem, dungeonscape is one of the few 3.5 books I dont personally own. But I will look into it. I like the idea of having some spell casting abilities since we only have one wizzard and the cleric and savage bard are the main "tanks"

 

[irdeggman]

A falchion is a 2 handed weapon that none of your classes is proficient in.

Getting it to light weapon isn't going to help - and the dervish benefit is for scimitars (treat them as light weapons instead of one-handed ones) won't apply to a falchion.

You will still need a class that gets you proficiency with scimitar (a martial weapon) - or burn a feat on martial weapon proficieny - scimitar ( a real waste since it only applies to a single martial weapon and not all martial weapons - without some house ruling).

In order to benefit most from 2 weapon fighting the off hand weapon needs to be light (and the primary hand needs to be one-handed or light).

You could use a longsword and a short sword and only get a -2/-2 penalty - the same as if using 2 short swords.

It should be noted that a rapier is treated as a light weapon for purposes of weapon finesse - so you can use a rapier and short sword for the -2/-2 penalty.

Elves get long sowrd proficiency for free as a racial benefit as well as long and short bows (and composite versions).

 

[Jmacc]

scimitars is what I meant earlier. I had a brain fart there. So if I am a Dervish and scimitars are then treated as light weapons, then wouldn't my weapon finesse work with 2 scimitars if I am a Dervish?
Any opinions on which is a stronger class, a Dervish or Tempest? Or any other prestige class that a rogue/scout kind of class would qualify for.

 

[udalrich]

Looking at what you posted, nothing seems horribly suboptimal about it to me. Can you tell us what weaknesses you're trying to address?

Regardless of the problems, Dervish probably isn't going to be very useful to you. You're currently missing 4 feats that you need to qualify, so you won't qualify before 16th level unless you multiclass into fighter for the bonus feats. You'd also need to improve your Int to qualify for Combat Expertise.

Even once you do qualify, the easiest way to get sneak attack consistently is flanking. The dervish requires you to move between attacks, which often means that you won't be flanking for some of your attacks.

Fighting with two scimitars (the Dervish's special weapon) might sound like an improvement, but it's not a noticeable one. Currently, when you flank, you do 1d6 + 2 (str) + 2d6 (sneak) on a hit. The scimitar would only increase the crit range. However, sneak attack doesn't multiply on a critical, so the only difference is that, 5% of the time, you do 5d6 + 4 instead of 4d6 + 2. As you gain more levels, your sneak attack will increase rapidly, but the critable damage will only increase slowly. (Recently, my 7th level rogue started a combat without his weapons. Rather than spend a turn retrieving them, he started punching opponents with his fists, since the sneak attack damage is most of the damage he does, regardless of his weapons.)

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Yes, you'd get Finesse on your scimitars. I would recommend for Dervish that you multiclass a bit with Fighter or Swashbuckler (free weapon Finesse; the +int to damage helps).

Is your character already existent, or are you just starting him out now? If the latter, are you willing to try a different build, race, and/or ability score placement?
With your party, it's actually pretty well balanced, and a wiz, cleric, and partial bard is decent casting support. I'm guessing the party will need a little more melee help and possibly a "face" to handle social skills, unless the bard has that covered. It's more of a fighter (or bard) class than rogue, but the Outcast Champion prestige class in Races of Destiny is a pretty cool charisma fighter option for half-elves, and has no BAB requirement, so you could enter it as a single class Rogue (though it will destroy your rogue skill advancement). That book also has racial substitution levels for half elf fighter (lower HD, more social skills and some class features useful for a rogue multiclass) and racial feats. Check it out if staying half-elf.

EDIT: The specific Racial feats for half-elves you might like:
Complimentary Insight: Skill synergies give you +3 bonus instead of +2. Useful if you're getting 5+ synergy bonuses for skills you use regularly.
Sociable Personality: Reroll gather information and diplomacy checks.

 

[Jmacc]

(Recently, my 7th level rogue started a combat without his weapons. Rather than spend a turn retrieving them, he started punching opponents with his fists, since the sneak attack damage is most of the damage he does, regardless of his weapons.)

That is awesome! lol I never thought of it like that , but it is a VERY valid point. Better to do 3 or 4 d6 damage right away than wait a round and do 4 or 5.

Also this character is already made. I made him at level 2 and joined the party who had adventured twice before I joined and started together at level 1.

My character is kind of the "face" smooth talker of the party. With Maxed out diplomacy (negotiator feat brings it to like a +10 at level 3) and high bluff. I didnt think the guy was horribly broken. Just a little squishy when we get into hard battles. I already took weapon finesse otherwise a level or two in Swashbuckler would be great. The more I think about it and the more I read responses I'm thinking that maybe not Dervish and maybe I should go Tempest at some point. and try and get the 2-4 attacks and all the bonuses. I will have to read Outcastchampion when I get home from work. If I remember right they were kind of a "dark" class who were shunned by the elves for being half elf and they give up all elven bonuses and treat elves as like favored enemies? Maybe I'm confusing it with another class.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

First, Welcome to the boards!

I agree with pretty much all of the solid suggestions above in regards to Scimitars, Dervishes, and the like.

However, because of your interest in UMD, the PC's high Cha, and a party with all of the other roles already filled, I'm going to suggest something I never have before: Warlock.

Like the rogue, the Warlock gets to UMD...and as I recall, they may be better at it.

A few feats down the road, you'd be able to use the Warlock's Eldritch blast to sneak attack at range.

In the alternative, you could even take Hideous Blow, the invocation that lets you stack your blast with a melee attack. If you're in position to SA, that could be devastating.

Crystalkeep has a list of the Warlock's invocations in pdf form. Crystal Keep - D&D and d20 System

There's an active discussion on Warlocks at this thread:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-3rd-edition-rules/260698-warlocks-being-broken.html

 

[Herobizkit]

I second Danny's recommendation. With that high Cha and ranged sneak attack potential combined with select stealth-related invocations, you can essentially uber-rogue your rogue. You should also be the mouthpiece of the group.