[koconnor100]

I have a 6 rouge/1 assassin who is getting her neutral evil ass-kicked with Deekin at her side

You basically took a rogue and backed him up with a bard. Two weak charactars.

find a quiet corner to park Deekin and tell him to hold. Litter the room up with traps and drag the manticore in.

The two "equalizers" that a rogue has to make up for their mediocre to poor combat abilities is traps and use magic device to cast spells from scrolls and stuff. I don't know what scrolls you have available.

If you passed on both of those skills you've probably created a charactar that cannot finish the game. The charactar system is very flexible, flexible enough to create "impossible" charactars. You do have to take a certain care.

Deeken is only good for fighter types and combat , since a bard sings to enhance combat abilities. Other than that, he uses a knock spell to open locks and mostly casts the wrong spells in combat, bards really can only be intelligently played by human beings the AI sucks.

For a rogue I suggest taking Dorna and when she hits level 2 talk to her about training and go cleric only. You might do the same thing with Xanos, telling him to go barbarian only, but Xanos has low constitution which is going to be annoying.