how to develop my rogue?

[killerTeddy]

Hello!

I have a party of four - fighter, rogue, priest at the front, mage at the center. So far its going smoothly, except some problems with pestilent rats very early in the monastery (and having no possibility to cure disease!) and one unforunate death of my faery-mage - forgot to cast my shields after sleeping in trynton, and met some unfriendly lev. 10 sprites.
My rogue uses still two daggers, poison as primary. Should i start training swords with her, dagger as secondary, or stick to daggers only? I believe the best dagger would be thieves dagger, but that being cursed, she could use no thrown/ranged weapons ever. She used some throwing daggers earlier - maybe she should start to learn the bow later (can rogues use any modern weapons???) She could get Fang later on, but my fighter might get jealous?!
Or should i switch classes at some point, to be able to give her better armor? (she isn't to intelligent now, so spellcasting wouldn't make much sense for her)
I just maxed Dex, and am working with Str - what should come next, SEN maybe? Or SPD?

[TinyMage]

Originally posted by killerTeddy:My rogue uses still two daggers, poison as primary. Should i start training swords with her, dagger as secondary, or stick to daggers only?

Seeing as the rogue can get some huge damage with backstab, it does seem like a waste to use a dagger in the main hand. I would give fang to your rogue and give your fighter the ivory blade ( when you get it ). Or you could give your rogue bloodlust, since one of his weapons is already cursed, it wouldn't make a difference.

Originally posted by killerTeddy:I believe the best dagger would be thieves dagger, but that being cursed, she could use no thrown/ranged weapons ever.

The best dagger is a tossup between the stiletto and the theives dagger depending on whether you think damage or chance to kill is more important. The stiletto is not cursed though.

Originally posted by killerTeddy:She used some throwing daggers earlier - maybe she should start to learn the bow later

If I was going to go ranged I wouldn't do throwing because the range, damage, kill%, and availability of ammo is worse then bows.

A ninja would be better for throwing ( thrown criticals and autopenetrate ).

Originally posted by killerTeddy:(can rogues use any modern weapons???)

Yes, except the blunderbuss, which is pretty much the best modern weapon. Unless you want to spend a while trying to get a frontier phaser.

Originally posted by killerTeddy:Or should i switch classes at some point, to be able to give her better armor? (she isn't to intelligent now, so spellcasting wouldn't make much sense for her)

Because backstab gets better with levels I would leave her as a rouge through the whole game.

Originally posted by killerTeddy:I just maxed Dex, and am working with Str - what should come next, SEN maybe? Or SPD?

Definetely go for speed next, then vitality. Senses doesn't do anything that isn't covered better by strength / dex / speed.

[ 07-03-2005, 06:55 AM: Message edited by: TinyMage ]

[Gimli]

"My rogue uses still two daggers, poison as primary. Should i start training swords with her, dagger as secondary, or stick to daggers only? I believe the best dagger would be thieves dagger, but that being cursed, she could use no thrown/ranged weapons ever. She used some throwing daggers earlier - maybe she should start to learn the bow later (can rogues use any modern weapons???) She could get Fang later on, but my fighter might get jealous?!"

I also think sword/dagger is more potent than dagger/dagger so picking up sword isn't a bad idea. A nice combination for a rogue is bloodlust/thieves dagger, and they can be had fairly early on. Keep another thieves dagger around though, IIRC they boost the lock picking skill and having two equipped will stack that bonus (of course you'll need to cast remove curse to switch between them).

What I like to do with rogues is dual throw before I switch to the cursed melee weapons. That builds dual wield and gives you enough throwing skill to make the rogue the "bomber" - ie, use the bombs, powders, etc with him for ranged attacks. That also gets around the cursed melee weapons as you can throw bombs while wielding them.

"Or should i switch classes at some point, to be able to give her better armor? (she isn't to intelligent now, so spellcasting wouldn't make much sense for her)"

I wouldn't do that, the backstabbing bonuses are just too good (and the Rogue locks bonus plus the two thieves daggers makes it much easier to avoid traps as well), JMHO but I would stay pure rogue.

"I just maxed Dex, and am working with Str - what should come next, SEN maybe? Or SPD?"

SPD and SEN both help your initiative equally; SEN helps you hit with both melee and ranged weapons; SPD gives you extra attacks/swings. They're both good choices but I would probably go with SPD since you don't have a character who can cast the Haste spell regularly to raise SPD. If you were to take Saxx and get the Rousing Drums then I would say go SEN and make copius use of Haste for SPD.

[killerTeddy]

Well, ok, she will stay a rogue. She's enough skills to spend points on anyway (not like the fighter who normally has all relevant skills maxed long before the game is over).
I just decided against cursed weapons for her, and the insta-killing of her new stilettos already had it's use: needed only one hit for this big ironskin crocodile
I thought about the frontier phaser - thanks for the tip, tinyMage! - but i will let her use my newly found seige arbalest (didn't know they could be found as early as trynton!)
I'm not too sure about what attributes to develop now.

[GMK]

Definitely speed, in my opinion.

Max out str/dex/speed and you have one nasty rogue. Hits hard with huge backstab lots of times a round.

I always aim for max str/dex/speed with my rogue by lvl 20, anything extra i will either put into vitality on creation for some extra hp, or senses once those three are maxed.

[Klutz]

Originally posted by killerTeddy: Well, ok, she will stay a rogue. She's enough skills to spend points on anyway (not like the fighter who normally has all relevant skills maxed long before the game is over). I just decided against cursed weapons for her, and the insta-killing of her new stilettos already had it's use: needed only one hit for this big ironskin crocodile I thought about the frontier phaser - thanks for the tip, tinyMage! - but i will let her use my newly found seige arbalest (didn't know they could be found as early as trynton!) I'm not too sure about what attributes to develop now.

My priority order for attributes for Rogues is normally: #1: DEX, #2: STR, #3/#4: SEN/SPD. SPD can drop below SEN if I have a reliable haste caster in the party. If not, the extra attacks from SPD make it more valuable than SEN. You're actually using non-cursed weapons, keeping the ranged weapon option open, so SEN will be more useful than usual for your Rogue.

Oh, and as far as the weapons go, I'd stick to Dagger/Dagger until you get Dagger skill to 75% or higher, and then switch to Sword/Dagger.

Have fun & good luck!