Rogueless parties: No problem

[Warhammer]

I do not use rogues (including bards and monks) in my parties, and I am doing great.

NB: I am not saying Rogues are not a great class, they just do not suit my playstyle.

So here's a suggestion as how to split the rogue's role among the other party members:

1/ Stealth, scouting and searching
The obvious solution is picking a ranger and giving him this role.

Otherwise invisibility will do the trick, the advantage of invisibility is that it can't fail and it does not take skill points to develop.

The best choice for the invisible scout is actually a druid in winter wolf shape or a hasted character or better still a hasted winter wolf! This baby moves as fast as you can click.

To get the most out of this you may need to give your druid Search as a cross skill. To achieve this give him 14 in intelligence and let the barbarian or the ranger handle the wilderness lore.

2/ Picking locks
Bash or use the knock spell

3/ Disabling device Picking pockets
For disabling traps, the easiest way is using the barbarian or the fighters a damage soaker. I dislike that for role playing reasons, I'd rather give him an above average intelligence and disable device as a cross skill.

In my case though disabling device and picking pockets is handled by my rogue 1/ wizard X. The wizard has 20+ intelligence and thats gives plenty of skill points to spare to develop these to skills. The single level rogue allows them even to keep them maxed.

Bottom line: You still lose sneak attack and the special rogue feats BUT you free a slot in your party! It will allow you to add a cleric of another domain, a second arcane caster or a third (?) tank.

Btw here's my party

[Cloudbringer]

To each his own, I guess, but in point of fact you DO have a rogue!

In my case though disabling device and picking pockets is handled by my rogue 1/ wizard X.

Just not a full fledged one.

Personally, I use a full rogue AND a bard in my games most of the time. Although a wizard who can pick pockets is something new I'm going to add! LOL

[DraconisRex]

Okay, so you don't have a rogue. Then you go right out and train someone to be a rogue, but call him a druid or a ranger or a whatever... [img]smile.gif[/img] I understand the concept, I do something similar:

Instead of a dedicated pure rogue, I do this (current party):

Numiel Lorkenvale
Wild elf
Sorceress (4)/Rogue(1)

STR 10
DEX 16
CON 10
INT 14
WIS 9
CHA 18

As I'm experienced (due to lots of mistakes in the past) with this type of charcter, I know how to maximize her skills w/o losing or burning up skill points. I level her up predominantly as a sorceress in a 4/1 ratio that goes in a certain pattern because of skill point allocation issues (R,SSSS).

When in rogue level up, she will put the majority of her points into the Open/Disable/Magic Device skills. Extra points, if any, will go to diplomacy, hiding, move silently and search. As a sorceress, points go into concentration and in skills that will/can help her theivery.

Her spells are a mixture of necromatic/evocrative offense and abjurative defense. She has the armored arcana feat (1) and the spell penetration feat.

She has the lowest amount of kills in the party. This is because of my spell selection choices that she can use to preserve her life (Laroch MInor Drain, that sort of thing)if she gets surprised while scouting. Rather than to be an offensive juggernaut, like a mage. (The pure mage has twice as many kills and rivals the tanks.)

As she develops, she will take more spells along the lines of "ghost armor," "haste," "improved invisibility," "hold person" and "hold monster." Her kills will stay down, but the tanks will have an easier go of it as they'd have extra attacks, paralyzed opponents, etc.

I also do Bard/Sorcerer combinations. Same results in many ways, just different ways to get there.

[Gimli]

Why would you want to multi the rogue with sorceress? Seems wizard is a better fit since Int helps the wizard and gives you alot more skill points. Just curious.

[Darth Vader]

In third edition anyone can be a thief my paladin for example can pick locks and pockets, find and remove traps, and hide in shadows whats so special about the thief class anymore used to be only a thief could do all of these things.

[DraconisRex]

Her purpose is to be a sorceress, rogue who specializes in steath, deception and enemy affect spells. She isn't a "maximize" per the rule-set character. She's a role-playing character.

....

Before she was an adventurer, she used her charm and feminen wiles, and her minimal roguish talents, to enrich herself at the expense of lecherous old human men in Waterdeep. An unfortunate encounter with the wife of a "patron," (while wearing the 'harpies' jewelry) led her to arrange hasty travel plans to Luskan.

She met Elspeth Tel'Mythlver, a young elf fighter on the road to Lusken. During their travels to Lusken, the power of the Arcane manifested itself directly, as is more common in the Wild Elves than the Moon Elves.

During the long walk to Luskan, they decided to form the Leaf & Star Adventuring Company.

....

In Luskan, they met Beowulf Aasgardi (Male Aasimar), who is a Paladin of Illmater (because thy didn't have paladin's of Tyr in this game) in Lusken. Beowulf was seeking to proove himself by deeds and joined the Leaf & Star Adventuring Company.

Sulipol Metharaz is the group's cleric (Lathander). She was a foundling drow child. All that is known about her circumstance is that her parents fled the Underdark, were devotees of Ellistrae, and were killed brutally by the servants of Lolth on the surface world. Sulipol was spared when a party of human adventurers happened upon the encounter.

Elmandor Faramir is an aasimari ranger, the child of a servant of the goddess Meilikki and a half-elf ranger. He grew up in the wild with his parents and only recently left their forrest to seek adventure.

The last member of their group is Kelthy. Kelthy is a necromancer, who was drawn to this discipline for reasons she doesn't yet understand. But the dreams, they burn...

[Warhammer]

Originally posted by DraconisRex: When in rogue level up, she will put the majority of her points into the Open/Disable/Magic Device skills.

I am unfamiliar with the Use Magic Device implementation in IWD 2. But is it not useless for a Sorcerer ?!