Rogues in a Construct & Undead heavy environment.

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User3
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Rogues in a Construct & Undead heavy environment.

Post by User3 »

The DM announces to his party of 4 players that the upcoming campaign will involve a well-balanced amount of encounter types (parley, traps/puzzles, urban encounters, environmental survival, tracking/hunting), but still a primary emphasis on combat and traps/puzzles.

The DM then states that when choosing your characters, your party will be unable to succeed without the services of a traditional skill-monkey Rogue. As the combat and non-combat encounters will also have a strong need for the traditional skills suite of a Rogue.

Then the DM drops a bomb .... a high majority of your combat encounters will be against Undead and Constructs.

An interesting party dilemma.

You need a Rogue for the Traps & Disable Device. And also, for the skill check "heaviness" of the campaign.

But the Rogue's traditional combat crux of sneak attacking will be pretty much null-&-void in this campaign.

So now it looks like some party member gets to play a Rogue. And thereby, gets to suck as a Rogue in the vast majority of the combats. Although he will get to be the glory-man in the skill check arena. Nonetheless, no one wants to be a liability in combat.

So what tactics and build structure is a Rogue in this predicament supposed to do?

Any insight would be appreciated. Because you know .... I want to be that Rogue player. But I also am unsure of how to be combat-viable for a campaign that will probably run from 1-15th level.

Thank you!
User3
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Re: Rogues in a Construct & Undead heavy environment.

Post by User3 »

There's a prestige class in the minis book, The Skullclan Hunter, that gives you the ability to damage undead with your sneak attacks at 2nd level. It'll cost you 8 skill points and a level in cleric or soldier of light or something to get turn undead, though.
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Re: Rogues in a Construct & Undead heavy environment.

Post by Username17 »

Several possibilities, depending upon level.

1> The Ranger/Rogue. Rangers in 3.5 rules (and many houseruled versions) had 6 skill points. Now, the Ranger has pretty much sucktastic abilities, especially at high level, but it's workable. A high int bonus and you won't even notice the difference, sort of.

2> The Bard/Rogue. See Rangers, above.

3> The combat Rogue. Who says you have to be a liability in combat? If you come in as a Dwarf or Elf you can get your hands on weapons every bit as good as the Fighters will have. You'll be out a BAB or two, but in the grand scheme of things that doesn't mean much when you have a Long Bow and Rapid Shot at 3rd level.

4> The Roguish Wizard. The entire sweet of Rogue Skills is Intelligence based, and available via a number of optional feats in a number of sourcebooks. If you take one of the feats that gives you 3 skills as class skills at first level you can be a Wizard with Search, Disable Device, and Move Silently. Everything else can be taken care of with divinations, illusions and transport magic. With an Int of 17 or so you'll have plenty of skill points to take care of it all and still cast silent image (which will hold an arbitrary number of uncontrolled skeletons off indefinately).

5> The Rogue Cleric. Like the Rogue Wizard above, but you get most of the way just by having the trickery domain.

---

Various PrCs can help you out here, but even at 1st level there's no reason why you necessarily need to have someone with the Rogue Class.

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Re: Rogues in a Construct & Undead heavy environment.

Post by User3 »

Thanks Frank (and Guest)!


Frank wrote:If you take one of the feats that gives you 3 skills as class skills at first level you can be a Wizard with Search, Disable Device, and Move Silently.
I know of the Cosmopolitan feat. That's 1 added skill to your class skills. I think Rokugan has the Versatile feat, which does 2. Hey, if there is a feat that adds 3 (as you stated), that would really rule the roost!

That Rogue/Wizard idea sounds interest. Although again, the Rogue's 1st level "Traps" ability can't be duplicated with any of these hybrid combinations. I guess the Cleric could cast the Find Traps spell (which normally sucks) and even make it Persistent as well. I really hate to say this, but an Amulet of Persistent Find Traps might be a really cool magic item idea for someone who wants to be a Rogue (and has Disable Device ranks up the wazoo).

See, that one level of Rogue makes such a huge difference (the Traps ability). That's why I thought if one of us has to invest in at least some Rogue levels, that person ought to at least crank out the full build in Rogue ... while still finding a way to make himself combat-viable.

The Archer Rogue sounds really interesting as well. Take Quick Draw feat to switch to his melee weapon or multiple tossed acid flasks (Rapid Shot!) if arrows run dry.

If I could just find a way now to get that Rogue's "Traps" ability, your Wizard or Cleric idea could really work out well.

Thanks again!
da_chicken
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Re: Rogues in a Construct & Undead heavy environment.

Post by da_chicken »

Well, you could use the variant from UA. Drop sneak attack for fighter feat progression (UA p58).
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Re: Rogues in a Construct & Undead heavy environment.

Post by Maj »

Guest wrote:I know of the Cosmopolitan feat. That's 1 added skill to your class skills. I think Rokugan has the Versatile feat, which does 2.


Unearthed Arcana has "Skill Knowledge" (I think) - it's in a mini-sidebar. If you cross class, you can choose two skills from your other class to always be in class, or you can just choose one skill to always be in class (no bonus like Cosmo, though).

I know of no feat that makes three skills in class.
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Re: Rogues in a Construct & Undead heavy environment.

Post by Username17 »

The feat of "bonus domain" and such-like is common in non-core materials, and of course "Trickery" adds three skills.

There are likewise a number of non-core feats which provide three specific skills as in-class (or even more as is the case with Educated).

So the pattern is:

1> Get +3 to one skill.
2> Get +2 to two different specific skills.
3> Get +2 to one skill and it is always in class.
4> Get +1 to two different specific skills and a group of related skills are always in class.
5> Get three specific skills in-class.

Aberration:

6> Get two skills in-class.

Since a "specific skill" isn't any more of a limitation than is "any skill" once you have enough of them, you have two options:

1> Wait until enough feats are published that you can show your DM "Gutter Rat" or "Swan Singer" or some other feat which happens to put exactly the three you want onto your list,

or

2> Point out that you could just knuckle drag until that happens, and it doesn't make any difference anyway, so why not just get it over with and get your feat right now.

Getting 3 class skills is well established to be on-par with a bonus feat in the Core Rules (Trickery domain vs. War Domain) - so it's not like it isn't totally inevitable that with only 46 or so separate skills in the entire game that all 15180 combinations will eventually be written down (including the feat that gives you access to Knowledge: Dungeoneering, Perform, and Swim - it could be called "Deep Singer"). Heck, there are more feats than that written for 3rd edition already.

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Re: Rogues in a Construct & Undead heavy environment.

Post by Thoth_Amon »


Frank Trollman wrote:The feat of "bonus domain" and such-like is common in non-core materials, and of course "Trickery" adds three skills.


Do you mean non-Core or non WotC?

Has WotC put out a feat that allows you to get a bonus domain?

This is a tenuous way to argue it is OK to create a feat that gives you 3 skills in class. I am not saying it is a bad house rule or it would break the game, but it seems a little loose.

TA
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Re: Rogues in a Construct & Undead heavy environment.

Post by Username17 »

WotC has in fact produced an "Epic Feat" which is "Bonus Domain". Non-WotC sources have produced non-epic feats which are "bonus domain". WotC has also produced Prestige Classes which give a Prestige Domain or a Bonus Feat (which is essentially just letting them take a Domain as a Feat when you think about it). More importantly, WotC has produced a great many feats which are the Domain Power of a domain, and a Domain Power is supposedly worth one feat (and often, in fact, is one feat, as is the case with the Elf Domain, the Repose Domain, the War Domin, etc.).

Trickery has the Domain Power of getting 3 class skills. It's worth one bonus feat. Possibly less, because Trickery also has one of the best spell lists of any domain ever printed, standard or prestige.

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