Question for rogue types...

[Jimbo]

Hey all, had a few questions on rogue issues:

1. How hard do the traps get in the official campaing that came with the game? I have been playing a fighter/rogue (1)/(5) and haven't had that much of a problem disarming traps and opening up chests. I was hoping to add a few more levels of fighter, so I don't get destroyed by NPC's with disarm and knockdown.

2. Anyone ever compaired say using light, medium, and heavy armor with a fighter/rogue? I don't use stealth, so was thinking of using medium armor, but I notice I tend to get beat on more with my scale mail (not anything like my fighter with full plate).

3. Doesn't it seem wierd that intel is very important for some rogue skills? I would have thought that open locks, set traps, disarm traps would have at least been say intel and dex.

4. For the more stealthy, sneak-attacking rogue, what henchmen were you using?

[Tim the Badger]

1. of what i have played of the game(up to near the end of chapter 2) my lvl 14 rogue has come up against traps that kill me outright. an electric 100hp trap or so normally takes me out. they catch me out but they aren't very common tho.

2.i dont use stealth either but with my rogue i tend to keep to the light armour as i prefer to dodge blows than be able to take them directly.

3.with my point distribution i just normally let the recommended points do their jobs, but then again i'm not a fighter/rogue, jus a plain ol rogue.

4. for my partner i tend to use other stealthy people like tomi undergallows even tho he is a poor fighter. when i come up against stronger foes i tend to just hire a wizard/ sorceror or a warrior.

hope this helped ya!

[Sigmar]

sorry ~Jimbo for spamming the thread, but check your pms Badger!

[Legolas]

1. The difficulty of most traps won't exceed 40. If you want to recover them rather than disarm the traps, you should expect a DC of 50. Some traps are a little higher, but this should see you through most of them.
2. Rogues shouldn't have metal armour, period [img]tongue.gif[/img] The main reason is not stealth, but rather the fact that your dex bonus doesn't count while wearing armour, and the fact that they take you closer to your weight limit that you want (unless you've spent a lot on strength as you may well have with a fighter/rogue).
3. I'd think so too. And intelligence is double important as it also lets you pick more skills per level, allowing your rogue to have a broader arsenal of skills.
4. I used Linu. When sneaking, I told her to stay back and let me take care of things. She's a nice aid in combat, and, for me, essential in the tougher fights (harm spells, you know ).

By the way, I doubt you really need a fighter/rogue. My rogue started out using missile weapons only, grew to shortsword and shield (she was a halfling) and in the later stages could wield a longsword (doublehandedly) in combat and get away with it. They can look after themselves with a bit of training.

[Gabrielles blades]

Disarm, knockdown...
There is *almost* nothing in the game that uses them much (dragons knockdown ALOT) but much of the rest of the game ignores them, so it usualy isnt important in the official campaign to be good in discipline. Note there are mods out there that are very hard without discipline, but they are few and far between as well. Just carry an item with immunity to knockdown incase you meet up with a boss that uses it.

Traps: once you start trying to disarm the really really hard traps you cannot do it with anything but a rogue. There are traps out there with a DC of around or slightly over 50. A 20th level rogue will generaly have around 50 ability in disarming a trap, so they are even OUT of the reach of a true rogue - hell usualy have to put on a couple +5 int rings and wear an amulet of the master and gloves of the rogue to disarm some traps.

All armor is equal in the original campaign so no matter what you are wearing, if you wear the best available for each type you will end up having around the same AC.
For example.
Full plate - red dragonscale 8 base +1 dex +5 magic =14 ac bonus
Medium - dragon armor -4 base +4 dex +5 magic = 14 ac bonus
Light - greenleaf - 2 base +6 dex +5 magic = 13 ac bonus

So as you can see, all armor works out to be around the same AC bonus in total, so it matters not what you wear, but more what your abilities are. For a low dex char it is best to go with heavy armor, high dex light armor etc.

The best AC in the game is with NO armor!
+12 dex bonus (from 34 dexterity - note you need to be an elf with 19 dex in creation and add 5 during level ups) And wear a bracer or robe for the +5 magic bonus to get 17 AC.
This bonus expands if your say a monk geting a bonus from wisdom as well, you could reasonably obtain 30 dex 20 wis thereby geting a 22 ac bonus.

NOTE - geting dex AND wis this high usualy means sacrificing either strength or constitution, so you arent making the ultimate character, you will just be making a strong defensive character verses a strong offensive one (who focuses on strength and constitution instead of dex/wis for a monk)

[Jimbo]

Hey, after further thoughts, testing, and more asking/reading, was wondering if I had some other ideas right.

1. Most have said to put 14 into intel at the start to max out disarm traps.

2. No one has really said much about how much dex is needed to open most locks. Is 12 okay at start? I know you can get lock picks to help, so wouldn't that make up for your lack of dex at start?

3. Does starting off with low wis and char hurt that much? I know a lot of the npc's call me ugly, but with points into persuade I don't have a hard time getting to things. Low will affects a saving throw, but other than that, what else?

4. Is using say a bastard sword or katana that much better for duel welding? Saying str is more than dex, and using a light weapon in off hand with all three duel-weld feats, would the extra feat increase damage that much? Kinda a nick-pick, but just something I was thinking about. Btw, finding the ranger/rogue kinda fun for duel-weld back stabing

5. Found the joys of arena on-line fighting My rogue is having fun shooting arrows into people's backs.

[Gabrielles blades]

1) that is more of a statement, i would agree with it as well however.
2) if you go with only 12 dexterity you will end up having VERY low ability as a rogue (mainly because with 12 dex it necessitates wearing full platemail to gain the necessary armor class to survive, and the plate in turn lowers many rogue abilities) NOTE you also cannot get ambidexterity without atleast 15 dext, and so will be denied improved 2 weapon fighting as well. Unless you play as a ranger in which case you get them for free HOWEVER, if you wear any medium or heavier armor you lose the advantage of the free ranger feats.
But, if you were going to say a naked rogue with X dexterity (PURE rogue) 12 would be fine for most but you might need to wear dex items and bonus things for a few and will be completely unable to do some of them without other help)
3) there are some npcs with high cha/persuade needed, not many though, and wisdom seems to affect some skills like spot and listen
4) theres a discussion on the merits of that sword already (theyre the same basically)
5) yup