Rogue's not bad at all ... it's just not what I want for this character.
I notice that
Wood Elves have ranger as their favored class, but they also have +2 Str / -2 Int. (Elves as strong as half-orcs? Weird!) I could make him a wood elf, perhaps, and reassign his stats a bit.
Re: talking the DM into waiving the favored class rules, this particular DM is very flexible about that kind of thing so I probably could -- but I would rather find a "within the RAW" solution if I can. It could just be that I could work up a background for the character that would make ranger his
personal favored class (since he's never going to take levels in Wizard anyway).
-The Gneech