Rogue / Spy help

[sjeshin]

Hi playground. My wife is playing in a game with me, 3.5, all wizards BOOKS content, except tomb of battle. She's a pretty experienced player, but not much good at optimizing, this is her first big attempt. She is looking to play a rogue that is not based around combat at all. All stealth, guile, trap / lock picking, diplomacy, and getting OUT of combat as often and easy as possible. Our group has rediculous combatant roles, and the campaign won't be as much combat, so she wants to be our secret agent that can go anywhere, steal anything, and befriend anyone.

What she needs are feats and magic items (we have 27000g no more than 9000 on one item). I've been digging through various tools, and books, but i'm trying to find some stuff to put her over the top... Our group is gross, experienced players with wizard, cleric, druid, and glaivelock... So she wants to be the very best at the spy / theif / face part for our party. Thanks in advance.

[DarthBunny13]

The breakdown of my character is lvl5 rogue and lvl3 assassin. I am having issues with the feat build as well because all the ones I have been seeing are more for combat than being that face character.

[A.A.King]

You say you need feats and magic items, but it might be nice if we know what Race and ability scores (some feats require certain scores) and if you really want the best of the optimization help I find it's usually best to say what is and what isn't determined. I know you want to be a Thief / Face / Spy but it doesn't have to be done with Rogue.

For now I will say this, if race has not yet been picked, chose Changeling and go with the Changeling Substitution Levels from Races of Eberron. Also for feats: for spying and stealing you can never go wrong with "Darkstalker" from Lords of Madness

[Chronos]

First of all, she doesn't actually want rogue. Factotum is basically better than rogue at everything and pretty good at a bunch of other things, and beguiler is about as good as rogue at most things but also has some rather nice spellcasting. Psychic rogue also has some neat tricks available.

For feats, I'll second Darkstalker, and also add (if you can qualify for them) Obtain Familiar and/or Psycrystal Affinity. Both familiars and psicrystals have all of your skill ranks, so having one basically means an entire extra skillmonkey character. You should be able to think of all sorts of ways to make use of an infiltration teammate, and if nothing else, they can use Aid Another on your skill checks.

Also remember that unless you're playing a primary spellcaster like a beguiler, there's almost no reason not to multiclass as a skillmonkey. Your ranks and other skill boosts will stack, and if you fall behind in ranks in a few skills you can catch up on them.

Check my signature for more ideas-- This is exactly the sort of character I like to play.

[sjeshin]

You say you need feats and magic items, but it might be nice if we know what Race and ability scores (some feats require certain scores) and if you really want the best of the optimization help I find it's usually best to say what is and what isn't determined. I know you want to be a Thief / Face / Spy but it doesn't have to be done with Rogue.

For now I will say this, if race has not yet been picked, chose Changeling and go with the Changeling Substitution Levels from Races of Eberron. Also for feats: for spying and stealing you can never go wrong with "Darkstalker" from Lords of Madness

Her race will most likely be human or elf for her preferance, stats are 80 points total, 18 max, 5 minimum in any one score. We'll look at changeling and the feat thanks.

[Greenish]

First of all, she doesn't actually want rogue. Factotum is basically better than rogue at everything and pretty good at a bunch of other things, and beguiler is about as good as rogue at most things but also has some rather nice spellcasting. Psychic rogue also has some neat tricks available.I'll second that. Factotum and Beguiler are basically less-stabbier, more skill-ier rogues. Beguiler has a load of useful spells to compliment its skills, and factotum is basically the king of skills (and faking it 'til you make it).

[Emperor Tippy]

Yeah, I too recommend Factotum over Rogue.

Race: Necropolitan Human (drop Necropolitan if it doesn't work for you fluff wise)
Class: Factotum 3/ Invisible Fist Decisive Strike Martial Monk 2 /Chameleon 3
Feats: Able Learner, Darkstalker, Quick Reconoiter, Kung Fu Genius.

Next level take Mindbender 1 and the feat Mindsight.

[Palanan]

I'll add another vote for Beguiler, one of my favorite classes. Extremely versatile depending on your skill allocation, and the spellcasting is superlative for what your wife wants to do.

If she goes Beguiler, she might want to consider the feat Retributive Spell (Complete Mage, p. 47) which automatically targets a spell on whoever deals you damage.

[sjeshin]

First of all, she doesn't actually want rogue. Factotum is basically better than rogue at everything and pretty good at a bunch of other things, and beguiler is about as good as rogue at most things but also has some rather nice spellcasting. Psychic rogue also has some neat tricks available.

For feats, I'll second Darkstalker, and also add (if you can qualify for them) Obtain Familiar and/or Psycrystal Affinity. Both familiars and psicrystals have all of your skill ranks, so having one basically means an entire extra skillmonkey character. You should be able to think of all sorts of ways to make use of an infiltration teammate, and if nothing else, they can use Aid Another on your skill checks.

Also remember that unless you're playing a primary spellcaster like a beguiler, there's almost no reason not to multiclass as a skillmonkey. Your ranks and other skill boosts will stack, and if you fall behind in ranks in a few skills you can catch up on them.

Check my signature for more ideas-- This is exactly the sort of character I like to play.

This was incredibly helpful. I had no idea how crazy factotum was. With able learner if she wants to multiclass, or if she doesn't pixie race 4 LA and 4 factotum could be amazing i think. What source is the pixie from orginally? All of our material is required to be in a book with wizards 3.5 on it.

[Karnith]

What source is the pixie from orginally?
Pixies are in the Monster Manual, or here on the SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/sprite.htm#pixie).

[Corinath]

LA+4 for Pixie is quite a bit though.

Some resources for you:

Factotem Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=2720.0)
Rogue Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=8711233)
Dipping Cleric 1 Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=2773)
Lists of Stuff! (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1068066) (Various ways to get various things.)
Beguiler's Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=363.0)

I know nothing about Beguilers, so I can't comment other than putting the handbook above.

I'll throw my hat in with everyone else and say +1 to Factotem. Changeling is brilliant for a Skill rogue. Worth taking for the Racial levels imo, if you go that route.

Able Learner and Factotem don't go well together. Factotem grants all skills as class skills, and that's twice as far as what Able Learner does.

To expand on the Monk dip mentioned above:

A 2-level Monk Dip grants invisibility every three rounds via Invisible Fist from EoE (Exemplars of Evil). Invisibility adds +20 to your hide check. If you go this way, pick the Sleeping Tiger Fighting Style (from Unearthed Arcana) with Decisive Strike Alternate Class Feature (From Player's Handbook II) to grant +2 hide and +2 (skill of her choice), Weapon Finesse at Monk 1, Decisive Strike at Monk 1 (-2 atk. *2 damage w/ unarmed strike or Monk weapon. Full-Round Action) and Improved Initiative at Monk 2.

If she's literally not planning on fighting at all, though, trading 2 levels away just for invisibility may not be appealing.

[Emperor Tippy]

Able Learner and Factotem don't go well together. Factotem grants all skills as class skills, and that's twice as far as what Able Learner does.
Able Learner goes great with Factotum. Factotum + Able Learner means that every skill is effectively a class skill (only costs 1 skill point per rank) at every level for every class.

Able Learner + Rogue 1/ Factotum 1/ Rogue 18 is actually the best skill monkey in the entire game.


To expand on the Monk dip mentioned above:

A 2-level Monk Dip grants invisibility every three rounds via Invisible Fist from EoE (Exemplars of Evil). Invisibility adds +20 to your hide check. If you go this way, pick the Sleeping Tiger Fighting Style (from Unearthed Arcana) with Decisive Strike Alternate Class Feature (From Player's Handbook II) to grant +2 hide and +2 (skill of her choice), Weapon Finesse at Monk 1, Decisive Strike at Monk 1 (-2 atk. *2 damage w/ unarmed strike or Monk weapon. Full-Round Action) and Improved Initiative at Monk 2.

If she's literally not planning on fighting at all, though, trading 2 levels away just for invisibility may not be appealing.

Martial Monk is better is every way than the various UA monk variants as you get to pick any two feats from the Fighter Bonus Feat list without having to meet the prerequisites. Hello Weapon Supremacy at level 1.

[Corinath]

Able Learner goes great with Factotum. Factotum + Able Learner means that every skill is effectively a class skill (only costs 1 skill point per rank) at every level for every class.

Able Learner + Rogue 1/ Factotum 1/ Rogue 18 is actually the best skill monkey in the entire game.

After going through and re-reading SRD, I had some definitions backwards. You're absolutely right. Also, consequently, you just took a sledgehammer to a character I've been working on for a couple of days. LoL.


Martial Monk is better is every way than the various UA monk variants as you get to pick any two feats from the Fighter Bonus Feat list without having to meet the prerequisites. Hello Weapon Supremacy at level 1.

I'm at a complete loss as to where Martial Monk is. Cite reference?

[Karnith]

I'm at a complete loss as to where Martial Monk is. Cite reference?
The Martial Monk variant is in Dragon Magazine #310, on page 45.

[Corinath]

Weapon Supremacy in Spoilers:
Weapon Supremacy

( Player's Handbook II, p. 85)

[Fighter Bonus Feat, General]

You are a grandmaster in the use of your chosen weapon. When you hold it in your hands, no foe can stand against you.
Prerequisite
Weapon Focus (PH) (with selected weapon) , Weapon Specialization (PH) (with selected weapon) , Greater Weapon Focus (PH) (with selected weapon) , Greater Weapon Specialization (PH) (with selected weapon) , Fighter level 18, Weapon Proficiency with with selected weapon, Weapon Mastery with damage type of selected weapon,

Benefit
When fighting with the weapon that you choose for this feat, you gain a number of additional advantages. You gain a +4 bonus on all checks made to resist being disarmed. You can wield your weapon against a foe who grapples you without penalty and without first making a grapple check. In this situation, you can take a standard action or a full attack action as normal. When you take a full attack action, you can apply a +5 bonus to any single attack after your first strike. Once per round before making an attack roll, you can instead choose to treat your d20 result as a 10. You gain a +1 bonus to AC.

Touché. I yield the floor good sirs.

[Chronos]

Quoth Tippy:

Able Learner + Rogue 1/ Factotum 1/ Rogue 18 is actually the best skill monkey in the entire game.

I would dispute this, on a few grounds. Yes, it gets almost the maximum possible number of skill points, and maximal freedom on how to spend them, but it's total bonus that matters to skills, not just ranks. You can do much better overall by dipping a bunch of classes that add non-rank bonuses to skills. Just for starters, taking factotum to 3 will only cost you four more skill points, but will potentially add a bonus greater than +4 to a very large number of skills. In fact, I suspect that, given any stat array and any skill loadout for a rogue 3/factotum 1, I could come up with a loadout for a rogue 1/factotum 3 that was strictly better.

Also, while a level of factotum and Able Learner will effectively give you all skills as class skills forever, that's not really a big deal in that build. A rogue already gets most skills as class skills, enough that you can easily spend all of your skill points on useful skills, so getting the few others you're missing isn't really worth much.

Where Able Learner really shines is when you've got a class with a lot of levels that gets a lot of skill points, but has a relatively limited skill list. For instance, a ninja 1/cloistered cleric 19 with Able Learner can spend all of his skill points on roguish skills, instead of just being limited to Knowledges like a cloistered cleric mostly is (ninja could also be replaced by rogue, factotum, or any other class with lots of class skills; I chose ninja for the wis synergy).