How to Buff A Sneaky Rogue?

[Skysaber]

Ok, I've done a search for Rogue Handbooks or Stealth optimization, and after encountering a lot of link rot, combat advice, or 4e material I still haven't answered my question.

What do people do when they want to get silly bonuses to Hide and Move Silently? What are the common tricks, the spells or magic items that virtually any sneaky-bot ought to have?

I don't even know the obvious stuff that everyone should be expected to know, never actually having built a sneaky type before, much less the optimized level of tricks.

Say, for example, your party thief accepted a challenge that he could Scry a dungeon on foot better than the wizard could with his spells, what would you consider him a fool for not taking?

[Piggy Knowles]

Here are some basics to keep in mind...

1. Darkstalker feat. I know, it's not a spell or magic item. But it's essential. Found in Lords of Madness, this lets you use your stealth skills against enemies with blindsight, blindsense, scent and tremorsense. How important is this? Well, I went through the SRD and pulled up all monsters with alternate senses (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Am8aHMxh9PPJdHRxWlpqVkpnZzZxSUxDYk1YMVc0X 2c&usp=sharing). Just in the SRD alone, there are 125 monsters with blindsense, 15 with blindsight, 132 with scent, and 27 with tremorsense. That's more than half of all monsters in the SRD alone. (And no, I didn't double up - if a monster had multiple senses I only counted one.)

2. Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis. It's an item from Tome of Magic that gives you the Dark template. (There's also a cheaper version that has limited uses per day.) All told, this lovely item gives you +8 Hide, +6 Move Silently, and Hide in Plain Sight in shadowy areas, as well as a few other nice bonuses.

3. Cloak of the Bat. Everyone seems to forget about this item, but it's in the DMG and gives you a flat +5 bonus to Hide all the time, plus the ability to turn into a bat (which sports an additional +12 bonus to Hide for being diminutive).

4. Shadow and Silent Moves armor. Also in the DMG, these armor enhancements can give up to a +15 bonus to Hide and Move Silently. The greater versions aren't cheap, and competence is a bonus type that has a lot of competition, but dang - +15 is really good.

5. Hat of Anonymity. Magic Item Compendium. Solid boost to Hide and permanent Nondetection, to help protect you from divinations that would otherwise give you away.

6. A lead lined cloak, preferably fairly large. Because otherwise you'll light up like a Christmas tree whenever anyone casts detect magic, regardless of how pimped your Hide check is.

7. Ring of the Darkhidden. Magic Item Compendium. You become immune to darkvision. Possibly situational, depending on your campaign, but indispensable in the right games.

...and, while I don't want to go too far into spells this post (there are a LOT that are big deals), I'll at least mention some of the biggies:

8. Superior Invisibility. Complete Arcane. It's a high level spell, but it's invisibility from... EVERYTHING. Well, almost everything. Still, with its duration and what it protects you from, this is hard to top.

9. Mind Blank. It's core, which is always nice, and holy geez is this one indispensable. Your Hide check can be through the roof, but it doesn't matter if any low-level schmuck with a few divination spells can say, "Hey, he's over there." Mind Blank stops most all of them cold. Mind Blank, Superior Invisibility and a lead lining over your magic items is surprisingly hard to beat stealth-wise.

10. Nondetection. Mind Blank's baby brother. It's also core, and while it's not nearly as good, it's still pretty great for its level. Ignore pesky detection and locate spells.

11. Remove Scent. Spell Compendium. If for some reason you don't have Darkstalker, then a commoner with a CR 1/3 guard dog can stop you. This is a level one spell that hits most lists, and gets rid of your scent.

12. Spiderskin. From Underdark, I like this one because it's dual purpose. It's basically Barkskin, but it also boosts your Hide checks and saves against poison. It's not earth-shattering, but it appears on both the druid and the sor/wiz lists, and it can easily be extended to last most of the day.

...there's more, lots more, both in items and in spells. But hopefully that should be a good start.

EDIT: Dang, I somehow forgot Camouflage, a level one spell from Spell Compendium that gives a +10 circumstance bonus to Hide checks with a decent duration.

EDIT 2: I had the sharing options wrong on that spreadsheet. Should be viewable now.

[avr]

If there's a lot of stuff on the ground which might make noise, don't touch the ground. Spider Climb or flight with good or better maneuverability are your tools of choice here. This also lets you apply the maxim 'if the door's locked, try the window'.

Any sort of invisibility is good for stealth. PK's Superior Invisibility would be good when taking on dragons, true.

Dust of Tracelessness breaks your trail almost as well as a teleport, and it's fairly cheap.

Darkvision whether from spell, item or natural is too good to do without. There's nothing like carrying a light to announce your presence in a darkened house or underground.

[Azoth]

Another feat that can be considered a little cheesey is Item Familiar. Using its ability to invest your skill ranks into it you can gain an untyped bonus of 1/3 total skill points invested divided as you choose to your skills. So using a class that gains alot of skill points per level you can easily gain a massive bonus to a few select skills.

[Skysaber]

Thank you. That's all excellent advice. I should have at least remembered the Darkstalker feat or the Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis, as they do get talked about a lot.

Item familiar and Fly and/or Spider Climb were others that seem obvious in retrospect.

I was hoping that you'd go a little further into buff spells, though. In terms of the challenge it would be a lot easier to get a few (or a lot) of spell buffs than a complete reequip. The party is just lousy with casters who could help. But a shopping trip only grants the wizard more time to cast his Scry spells.

And the Dual-Wielding Sneak Attacker who only ever had to flank to get his job done, caught out boasting about how he could scout better than the Diviner got told "Prove it" and looked at his character sheet only to realize that he'd never spent a copper piece on being sneaky.

And I don't know how to help him.

He's got max skill ranks in it, and a high dex of course. But the rest of what might be considered necessary preps got neglected.

[Azoth]

There is a spell somewhere I can't remember the name of it right now, but it let's you detach either an eye or hand to scout for you and has a pretty good range. You could do the good old Chain of Eyes approach to get someone, to rather unsuspecting scout it all out for you.

For a mostly mundane person to physically scout ahead unseen is rather hard depending on the area he is going at and his exact build.

If there are going to be moving guard details, can he make sure to have places to hide and wait for them to get clear?

Can he handle locks reasonably quickly and reliably?

Can he handle traps both mundane and magical on his own?

Can he detect and circumvent wards alarms on his own?

Does he have any "Get out of jail free" cards? If so how many?

If he can't and has to fight, how feesable is it that he will survive?

[JaronK]

May I suggest this guide to stealth and scouting? http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11034.0

It's not specifically about Rogues, but rather about scout types in general.

JaronK

[Curmudgeon]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the very first thing you start with: a masterwork tool particular to the job. There's only one job the Hide skill covers, so one tool applies to all Hide checks. It's only 50 gp for a +2 circumstance bonus. This overlaps with Camouflage, but unlike a spell the tool doesn't have a duration so its bonus will be there for every Hide check you make.

Also worth noting is the regularization of common item effects in Magic Item Compendium on pages 233-234, and before that specifically for Bracers of Armor in Arms and Equipment Guide on page 130. You can add armor bonuses to any Arms slot (bracers) or Body slot (robe) items, and then add non-numerical armor enhancements on top of those. So get yourself an AC-boosting spiffed-up robe with Shadow, Greater; you don't need actual armor with its ACP issues to impair your Hide skill.

[avr]

On spells not mentioned already - Message to get the scouted info back or to call for help is good in many situations. Gaseous form can get you into places difficult to enter as a Medium-size humanoid, as can Alter Self, Polymorph or even Reduce Person, though watch the durations; 1 min/level often isn't enough.

Don't concentrate too hard on straight numerical bonuses to Hide/MS, the rogue will probably have good enough numbers already. Magic is better used to allow stealth where it wouldn't normally be possible or to avoid barriers.

[sleepyphoenixx]

A note on the Hat of Anonymity: by the time you can afford it the CL of the nondetection effect is usually to low to be reliable. You're basically paying 12500gp for a +5 bonus to hide.

[Vaz]

Wand of Alter Self. Utility, but also for Skulk; stupid high Bonuses to Hide and Move Silently.

[Skysaber]

If there are going to be moving guard details, can he make sure to have places to hide and wait for them to get clear?

Can he handle locks reasonably quickly and reliably?

Can he handle traps both mundane and magical on his own?

Can he detect and circumvent wards alarms on his own?

Does he have any "Get out of jail free" cards? If so how many?

If he can't and has to fight, how feesable is it that he will survive?

He has all of the skills he needs. One of our longest standing house rules is to double all skills and feats the rules would ordinarily give you without changing what the max ranks for level are. So he's got full ranks of Search, Open Locks, Hide, Sneak, Disable Device, Spot, Listen, etc.

Other than skills and a high dex, though, no, he doesn't have anything special, which is why I'm looking for advice.

Also, the skill doubling rule applies to monsters as well as players, so most things he encounters will have max ranks of Spot and Listen. So he's really hoping to pick up some buffs soon.

As for survival, he's a combat monkey. That's where he's spent all of his feats and gold. I doubt there's anything in there that he can't solo, if it comes down to it, or escape should he prove unable. But the rules of the challenge the players worked out are that he loses points should he engage in combat (as they reason the ideal scout identifies the layout but lets the party share in the xp of the killing and looting).


May I suggest this guide to stealth and scouting? http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11034.0

It's not specifically about Rogues, but rather about scout types in general.

JaronK

Thanks, that was very helpful. Spent the last few days reading that, and it was very insightful. But I note that it doesn't have a section on buff spells. Is there a reason for that?

Nondetection, Gaseous Form and Alter Self are all great ideas. Duration isn't that much of a problem. The party cleric is even willing to DMM Persist a few buffs to help him