Rogue skills vs sorcerer spells

[Aliquid]

I'm sure this has been discussed before... but my search for existing threads came up blank

Anyway... I have a player who is playing a rogue and is pumping up her balance/climb/jump etc. skills. She wants to be like a ninja acrobat type character.

Problem is, it seems like the system isn't built for this. A high level rogue with skills maxed out is no better than a level 1 sorcerer pulling out a "jump" spell to get across the obstacle.

[Troacctid]

Psychic Rogue (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723b) does it better. They can leap around like a Jedi, stick to walls like Spider-Man, keep their balance on any surface (including walking on water), and even levitate--but unlike Sorcerers, they still have the skills and sneak attacks of a Rogue, and they don't need to fiddle around with fussy spell components.

[Jack_Simth]

I'm sure this has been discussed before... but my search for existing threads came up blank

Anyway... I have a player who is playing a rogue and is pumping up her balance/climb/jump etc. skills. She wants to be like a ninja acrobat type character.

Problem is, it seems like the system isn't built for this. A high level rogue with skills maxed out is no better than a level 1 sorcerer pulling out a "jump" spell to get across the obstacle.

A Sorcerer-1 has two 1st level spells known. For practical purposes, this means the Sorcerer can do two things well-ish, and even at that, only about four times a day. The Sorcerer might be able to, say, Disguise Self and Jump. But that's about it (until you get into cantrips, but really...)

That Rogue-1, on the other hand, even with just a 10 in INT, has 8 different skills at max ranks (or more - Human Bonus skills, for instance). That could be a human Rogue with Diplomacy, Jump, Disguise, Hide, Move Silently, Spot, Listen, Search, Disable Device. While yes, the +4-ish on the Rogue's Jump isn't going to be nearly as good on a one-shot as the Sorcerer casting Jump, and the Rogue's Disguise is likely to be less effective (at 1st) than is the Sorcerer's Disguise Self... Disguise Self lasts 10 minutes at that level; 40 total with recasting if the Sorcerer-1 does nothing else; the Rogue's disguise skill check will last all day, and the rogue can still use all those other skills. Yes, the Sorcerer's jump check is going to beat the rogues (at 1st) by +6... but the Sorcerer is only really able to cast Jump four times (and doing so means no Disguise Self!), while the Rogue can jump all day.

There's a tradeoff. The Rogue also gets a better hit die, better attack bonus, better weapon/armor proficiencies, and sneak attack.

Warrior-types generally start pretty high, but have linear improvement.
Caster-types generally start pretty low, but have a quadratic improvement.
Skillfull types tend to be roughly centered between the two at pretty much all levels.

[Troacctid]

A savvy Sorcerer would cast Expeditious Retreat or Wings of Bounding instead of Jump, but I suppose the point still stands.

[Gildedragon]

Introduce them to the swordsage; shadow hand martial maneuvers will boost their rogue-ninja-ocity by a factor of a lot.
Notably the hide and teleport ones.
Also allow them to craft alchemical devices like liquid smoke, smoke grenades, and the like.

[Aliquid]

Psychic Rogue (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723b) does it better. They can leap around like a Jedi, stick to walls like Spider-Man, keep their balance on any surface (including walking on water), and even levitate--but unlike Sorcerers, they still have the skills and sneak attacks of a Rogue, and they don't need to fiddle around with fussy spell components.
In all my years (decades) of playing D&D, I have never bothered paying attention to psionics before. It just doesn't fit into the fantasy worlds I play in. But that is exactly the sort of abilities my player would want... a bit of tweaking and I could make it work.

Thanks

[Andezzar]

In all my years (decades) of playing D&D, I have never bothered paying attention to psionics before. It just doesn't fit into the fantasy worlds I play in. But that is exactly the sort of abilities my player would want... a bit of tweaking and I could make it work.

ThanksJust take the transparency rules a bit further and call it magic.

[ATHATH]

If you haven't played with Psionics before, remember the #1 rule for it:

You cannot use more than your Manifester Level in Power Points to manifest a power.

[Kelb_Panthera]

This is one of those big, persisntent fallacies. Skills and magic nearly always work better together than separately. A rogue can get a pair of boots of striding and springing or a ring of jumping and will be jumping -very- well in short order and can UMD a spell trigger/completion item or just chug a potion of jump on an occasion where he really needs the extra oomph.

The same goes for just about any spell you'd care to name. Most of the spells that supposedly obviate skills call on those skills directly by giving a large boost to the skill check. Someone who has ranks will -always- be able to do it better than someone who doesn't when employing these spells or items that mimic their effect.

Bonus points for the OP's rogue friend: Sword dancer in OA is a thing. Competence bonuses to all the acrobatic skills in values to match jump as a class feature.