Lee wrote:Ah, but you do! Acid Fog gives your party time to prep, & buff, and position itself for when the opponent(s) come out of the fog. I don't know of any min/maxed high level partys that do not have everyone using Blindsight. And with Blindsight, the Trickster can fire rays into the Acid Fog. Since Rays are the only form of missile fire that can penetrate a fog. This is a great tactic versus an opponent that does not have a mobility solution to deal with Acid Fog's movement hindrances.
So... the synergy is that if you cast Acid Fog when you have the Rogue levels in there... you can cast and use your Wizard spells?
How exactly does the Rogue contribute to this?
Oh wait... this is another chance where you can combine a number of optional spells together in order to get your second rate sneak attack while firing one or two spells. See my previous comment that there were only two forms of synergy available to the Arcane Trickster.
Now the Wizard can cast Acid Fog and use area effect spells, or if you allow the spell "blindsight" - you can fire away with normal targetted attack spells.
In any case you can take the extra time to buff up the party or conjure things. No Rogue levels are required - or helpful - for this tactic.
Lee wrote:Rogue skills, Rogue Sneak Attack, Divination Scouting spells, Rays + SA, Mobility & Stealth enhancement spells, ranged Disable Device/SoH capabilities, the list goes on and on Frank.
That is the list of things you have. It is not the list of synergy which is available to you that would not be available to you if the party Rogue and the party Wizard were different people.
The Rogue can Fly better if he gets the party Wizard to buff him than if he gives up 70 skill points and 5 levels of sneak attack progression to be able to do it himself.
The synergy is:
1> The Wizard end gets the ability to layer sneak attack on touch spells.
2> The Rogue end gets personal range buffs without needing to resort to a Ring of Spell Storing or the Use Magic Device skill.
That's it. Any non-personal buff the Rogue could benefit from can be cast at a higher caster level (making it at the very minimum harder to dispel) by just having the party Wizard cast it on you. Any sneak attacking the character does which is not in the form of a direct damage spell (and not one from a wand or other magic device) would be better if performed by an actual Rogue who had more sneak attack dice.
So show me the money. What's the personal range spell that is such a god damned killer app that a Rogue would be willing to give up seventy skill points, 4 points of BAB, and 5 levels of Sneak Attack (not to mention such non-trivialities as Skill Mastery) in order to cast it on himself. What's the killer damage combo that's so awesome that a Wizard would give up 3 caster levels in order to get those extra sneak attack damage dice?
So far, every killer combo you've shown is just "Wizards are awesome". Yeah, we know that. That's not new, and it's not something that a Wizard couldn't just do. You haven't shown any Rogue combos at all, and haven't made a single compelling argument as to why we wouldn't just play a Red Wizard.
-Username17