advice for a rogue build for a whisper gnome with really low stat

[sxpaiscia]

hi everyone, i need help with a new characther build for an incoming game i'm gonna play with friends...
We just finished rolling our stats and i ended up with this: 9 - 16 - 6 - 9 - 10 - 12 ... we usually use from 60 to 80 points.. and my sum is 62, so no luck for rolling again (we start all at lvl 1)

now, i already decided to create a whisper gnome rogue, and adding the racial bonus and malus of the class i got this situation:

STR - 4
DEX - 18
COST - 12
INT - 12
WIS - 9
CHA - 7

i never played a rogue, i was just starting to see some builds and guides here on the forum, but with stats like this they were not much useful...

what skill should i prioritize? (i will not play much "social rogue" i guess...) and about feats/abilities that could help me?

this are my biggest concerns right now, olso the equipment... for now the master gave everyone of us the possibility to get a marvellous object from the DM manual, so i choose a bag of holding (he want to make us count every pounds of what we carry this time ^^'') for my pg.. could i get something better or more usefull? (max value is 2500)

[Ghen]

I had a longish reply whipped up to this earlier, at which point my cat hit the surge protector and I lost everything. So this will be a shorter version.

For skills: I'd pump hide, move silently, spot, listen, and search. I'd also work towards getting 5 ranks in bluff, even though your Charisma is low. I had a long explanation of why I would do this seemingly counter-intuitive thing, but I don't feel like explaining it again so there you go. Hint: skill synergies.

Items: I would go to Heward's Handy Haversack instead of your type I bag of holding. Triple H has a number of advantages over the bag, and only the one weakness of being capable of holding less stuff.

Feats: I don't know... you have a ton of options. What's everybody else in your party doing?

[Rebel7284]

Str 4 is going to be really tough. Your light load is 13 lbs. Haversack is 5 lbs. Getting your Dex to damage would be nice. Shadow blade is the best way of doing that, but requires some levels in swordsage (or feats)

[Allanimal]

Str 4 is going to be really tough. Your light load is 13 lbs. Haversack is 5 lbs.

Doesn’t the weight go down when sized for a smalll creature? Or us that just weapons and armor?

[sxpaiscia]

I had a longish reply whipped up to this earlier, at which point my cat hit the surge protector and I lost everything. So this will be a shorter version.

For skills: I'd pump hide, move silently, spot, listen, and search. I'd also work towards getting 5 ranks in bluff, even though your Charisma is low. I had a long explanation of why I would do this seemingly counter-intuitive thing, but I don't feel like explaining it again so there you go. Hint: skill synergies.

Items: I would go to Heward's Handy Haversack instead of your type I bag of holding. Triple H has a number of advantages over the bag, and only the one weakness of being capable of holding less stuff.

Feats: I don't know... you have a ton of options. What's everybody else in your party doing?

thank you so much for your advice! i will try to work that way, and i'm sorry that your cat deleted all the work, but this is good advices thank you :)

i have no idea that type of bag existed, the ability to always find what you need is really useful, a bit better that the bag of holding even if it can carry less...

the rest of my party is not sure, i know one will play a bard but the other 2 are still unsure... i realy don't know if is better a feat that will work in combat or one more for the utility... like trying to do the best use of all that dexterity i have...



Str 4 is going to be really tough. Your light load is 13 lbs. Haversack is 5 lbs. Getting your Dex to damage would be nice. Shadow blade is the best way of doing that, but requires some levels in swordsage (or feats)

that's a nice feat, but like you sayd i need some levels in swordsage before right? at what level it can more usefull? i don't think it is much for now because it work for melee damage and i don't think i will play melee for now ^^'' .. thank you for the idea :)

[16bearswutIdo]

If you've already committed to not being a social rogue, you may as well put your 6 in charisma imo. Taking a -3 to your damage/early game to-hit with (presumably) a dagger or rapier is going to be really rough.

Weapon Finesse is an obvious must, but rogues can't take that until level 3. God bless +1 BAB requirements.

[Zaq]

Until you get enough sneak attack to reliably muscle past the -3 damage, crossbows might be your best source of damage, since they aren’t affected by STR penalties (unlike thrown weapons, bows—yes, penalties apply even to non-composite bows—and melee weapons). Once you’ve got a fistful of d6 on every swing, the initial hit doing 1d3-3 won’t be so annoying, but your early career needs to be respectful of that.

Regarding carrying capacity, I was going to suggest a dip in Nomad for personal space (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070314a), but upon rereading it, it’s only the size of “a belt pouch” with a one-level dip, and that doesn’t seem efficient. A dip in PsyRogue for Dimensional Pocket (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723c) has similar scaling issues. If you’re still in the planning stages, PsyRogues are usually more interesting than Rogues in general (losing two skill points and slightly slowing down SA in exchange for gaining actual psionics is a good trade) and you’d probably have fun by building as a PsyRogue, but I don’t know if it’s worthwhile to do that if the character already exists.

Long-term, you may need to invest in a way to proactively prevent STR damage, like by getting the Strongheart Vest and a couple of essentia. The usual “just carry items that can restore stat damage” advice doesn’t apply when many sources of stat damage can zap you to 0 in one failed save. You probably won’t get in immediately, but Umbral Disciple is a good PrC for sneaky characters with a little bit of interest in Incarnum, so that might be worthwhile to look into in the long run.

Basically, you’ll want to play to your strengths. You’re less good at the face skills than many Rogues are, though that can be overcome with enough ranks. You won’t want to do work that involves carrying anything, so you won’t be doing much “sneak in and loot the place” work until you’ve got really good extradimensional storage. Eliminate the options that aren’t going to work so well and find a different area of focus to shine in. Maybe scouting? That WIS penalty is painful, but enough skill ranks will let you muscle through.

And while it won’t help much for stealthy work, remember that pack animals are a thing. You can just buy a pack horse or a mule to carry most of your stuff with you. Figure out the absolute minimum of gear that you always need on your actual person and that you can’t afford to spend an action retrieving from your mule’s saddlebags, then put everything else on your beast of burden.

[gorfnab]

A dip in PsyRogue for Dimensional Pocket (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723c) has similar scaling issues. If you’re still in the planning stages, PsyRogues are usually more interesting than Rogues in general (losing two skill points and slightly slowing down SA in exchange for gaining actual psionics is a good trade) and you’d probably have fun by building as a PsyRogue, but I don’t know if it’s worthwhile to do that if the character already exists.

I agree with the Psychic Rogue recommendation. Here are two handbooks that may help you as well.
Rogue Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?156350-3-5-The-Rogue-Handbook-A-Fistful-of-d6)
Psychic Rogue Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?234327-3-5-Thinking-on-your-Feet-The-Psychic-Rogue-Handbook)

[Ghen]

thank you so much for your advice! i will try to work that way, and i'm sorry that your cat deleted all the work, but this is good advices thank you :)

You're welcome :) Hopefully we don't just lead you astray lol.


i have no idea that type of bag existed, the ability to always find what you need is really useful, a bit better that the bag of holding even if it can carry less...

Well yeah, that's cool, but the most important part for you is that it weighs 10 lbs. less. A bag of holding would put you at a medium load, even if you were otherwise naked.


the rest of my party is not sure, i know one will play a bard but the other 2 are still unsure... i realy don't know if is better a feat that will work in combat or one more for the utility... like trying to do the best use of all that dexterity i have...

Sweet, then let the bard do the heavy lifting when it comes to social interaction, he'll have the skills AND the magic to back it up. For feats you might consider improved initiative. It will be very important to you to catch enemies flat footed as often as possible.


Doesn’t the weight go down when sized for a smalll creature? Or us that just weapons and armor?

I know that backpacks for small creatures and some other bits that aren't weapons or armor do get halved (as well as the amount of stuff that they can hold). I think the Heward's Handy Haversack weight stays the same regardless of size, as does it's carrying capacity. Good idea though. P.S. Your avatar rocks.


If you've already committed to not being a social rogue, you may as well put your 6 in charisma imo. Taking a -3 to your damage/early game to-hit with (presumably) a dagger or rapier is going to be really rough.

Weapon Finesse is an obvious must, but rogues can't take that until level 3. God bless +1 BAB requirements.

Struggling against the low strength score is a pain, so I do think this is sound advice, especially if you do decide to let the Bard take care of social stuff. Weapon Finesse is a very strong choice, even though OP doesn't want to focus on melee combat. The problem is, sometimes the bad guys close on you anyway, and you should strive to be prepared.


Until you get enough sneak attack to reliably muscle past the -3 damage, crossbows might be your best source of damage, since they aren’t affected by STR penalties (unlike thrown weapons, bows—yes, penalties apply even to non-composite bows—and melee weapons).

Very sound advice which brings us to my second choice for a feat; rapid reload. Most folks on the forum will probably say that this is not good advice because they consider it a poor career choice to stick with crossbows, but I don't see much problem with it, myself.


And while it won’t help much for stealthy work, remember that pack animals are a thing. You can just buy a pack horse or a mule to carry most of your stuff with you. Figure out the absolute minimum of gear that you always need on your actual person and that you can’t afford to spend an action retrieving from your mule’s saddlebags, then put everything else on your beast of burden.

This is a pretty affordable option and a great choice, but can be a little aggravating from a paperwork standpoint. It takes a bit of time before adventures to remember to stock up on feed, hire animal handlers (because you want somebody keeping an eye on the mule while you're in the dungeon), and manage who's got what inventory. However if you don't mind the responsibility, this would save you 5-15 lbs on the extra-dimensional containers and allow you to spend that one wondrous item on something else (perhaps a ring of sustenance?).

I'd would also like to add that darkwood items can help you keep your weight under control. It's even pretty inexpensive; you might be able to fit some darkwood items into your budget even with starting gold. I vote for darkwood light crossbows and bolts.

[Arael666]

that's a nice feat, but like you sayd i need some levels in swordsage before right? at what level it can more usefull? i don't think it is much for now because it work for melee damage and i don't think i will play melee for now ^^'' .. thank you for the idea :)

The best lvl for a swordsage dip is 9, since you have acess to lvl 3 maneuvers and stances (assassin's stance being key). If you're going for a two lvl dip I sugest you take the first at lvl 5 and the second at lvl 8, this way you can grab shadow blade at lvl 6 or 9.

Also, check the darkstalker feat, it's a must have for sneaky rogues

[sxpaiscia]

Well yeah, that's cool, but the most important part for you is that it weighs 10 lbs. less. A bag of holding would put you at a medium load, even if you were otherwise naked.


Sweet, then let the bard do the heavy lifting when it comes to social interaction, he'll have the skills AND the magic to back it up. For feats you might consider improved initiative. It will be very important to you to catch enemies flat footed as often as possible.


Struggling against the low strength score is a pain, so I do think this is sound advice, especially if you do decide to let the Bard take care of social stuff. Weapon Finesse is a very strong choice, even though OP doesn't want to focus on melee combat. The problem is, sometimes the bad guys close on you anyway, and you should strive to be prepared.



Very sound advice which brings us to my second choice for a feat; rapid reload. Most folks on the forum will probably say that this is not good advice because they consider it a poor career choice to stick with crossbows, but I don't see much problem with it, myself.



This is a pretty affordable option and a great choice, but can be a little aggravating from a paperwork standpoint. It takes a bit of time before adventures to remember to stock up on feed, hire animal handlers (because you want somebody keeping an eye on the mule while you're in the dungeon), and manage who's got what inventory. However if you don't mind the responsibility, this would save you 5-15 lbs on the extra-dimensional containers and allow you to spend that one wondrous item on something else (perhaps a ring of sustenance?).

I'd would also like to add that darkwood items can help you keep your weight under control. It's even pretty inexpensive; you might be able to fit some darkwood items into your budget even with starting gold. I vote for darkwood light crossbows and bolts.


thank you again!! this are really nice advices!

so what feats tree could i consider? rapid reload - weapon finesse - crossbow expert or maybe skulker? (or alert even for the initiative? ) my friends are suggesting even "jack of all trades" but that is only for more skill points...

m other friend will make a crusader so he will take care of tanking and melee fighthing i hope... i changed my stat and now i have just that really bad -3 in cha instead of str that is at -2 now...
and i will play this as the less social rogue ever but try to make him the best infiltrator and stuff....

olso the darkwood crossbow is a great idea and i will go for it... better to stay light right? ^^

the mule can be a nice idea but it will stone with my background for this characther sadly ^^ maybe in the future if he manage to get some money on him :D


Until you get enough sneak attack to reliably muscle past the -3 damage, crossbows might be your best source of damage, since they aren’t affected by STR penalties (unlike thrown weapons, bows—yes, penalties apply even to non-composite bows—and melee weapons). Once you’ve got a fistful of d6 on every swing, the initial hit doing 1d3-3 won’t be so annoying, but your early career needs to be respectful of that.

PsyRogues are usually more interesting than Rogues in general (losing two skill points and slightly slowing down SA in exchange for gaining actual psionics is a good trade) and you’d probably have fun by building as a PsyRogue, but I don’t know if it’s worthwhile to do that if the character already exists.

Long-term, you may need to invest in a way to proactively prevent STR damage, like by getting the Strongheart Vest and a couple of essentia. The usual “just carry items that can restore stat damage” advice doesn’t apply when many sources of stat damage can zap you to 0 in one failed save. You probably won’t get in immediately, but Umbral Disciple is a good PrC for sneaky characters with a little bit of interest in Incarnum, so that might be worthwhile to look into in the long run.

Basically, you’ll want to play to your strengths. You’re less good at the face skills than many Rogues are, though that can be overcome with enough ranks. You won’t want to do work that involves carrying anything, so you won’t be doing much “sneak in and loot the place” work until you’ve got really good extradimensional storage. Eliminate the options that aren’t going to work so well and find a different area of focus to shine in. Maybe scouting? That WIS penalty is painful, but enough skill ranks will let you muscle through.



thank you for your advice, i will probably go for the crowwbow because is convenient for me at the moment..

i have not much idea how psy rogue work, but reading the guide i don't think my wis or int are enought hight to make it worth i guess...

i found "unchained rogue" around but i think is only for pathfinder, because in that case i could have weapon finess at 3* lvl that will help a lot with my low str stat... there is a way to play it in 3.5?

[Zaq]

There's no black and white RAW (Rules As Written) answer for bringing PF material into a 3.5 game, but like everything else, you can ask your GM and see if they'd choose to allow it. I have no personal experience with the Unchained Rogue, but it might work, I suppose.

You'd still probably benefit from going Psychic Rogue rather than vanilla Rogue if you have the option. Even with only 12 INT, you might not have as many PP per day as a truly optimized PsyRogue, but you'd still have more options and more interesting tricks than a plain Rogue would. You'd be heavy on the Rogue and light on the Psychic (so your psionics would definitely be a backup plan rather than your immediate go-to choice in every single scenario), but after a couple levels, you'll have enough tricks to get yourself into and out of more interesting trouble than a purely mundane character could. Sure, it won't be "the best possible PsyRogue it's possible to make" or anything, but with those weird stats you have, you won't really be the best possible anything. What matters is that you make a character that's fun to play and who aligns with the power level of the group. I still maintain that with your stated goal and your starting position, a PsyRogue will help you more than a plain Rogue will.

Don't worry about WIS. WIS really only matters on PsyRogues for the feat Psychic Meditation, and not taking that just means that you'll rely more on keeping your psionic focus than on expending your psionic focus, nothing more. (You don't even have to care that much about your psionic focus at all if you don't want to. It's a potentially useful tool, but it's not the be-all and end-all.)

I mean, plain Rogue is fine. They aren't an awful class, at least by non-magical standards. I like having a few more back-pocket tricks than that, though.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Rogue is a fairly MAD class.
You want high dex, str and int of 10-14 (depending on rolls/PB), Con 14+ (d6 HD and bad fort...this is a must), Wis...at least 10 (bad will...rogues have the worst base saves in the game), and Cha you want at least an 8, ideally a 12+ for all those cha-based skills.

You have no true dump stat and need moderately good scores in many of them.

Your rolls are terrible for a rogue. sorry, but I need to be brutally honest. They're pretty bad in general...looks like the bonuses and penalties add up to a net of +0, and i thought there was some rule that if you have worse than a +1 net bonus, you get to reroll... Look into that.*
If you are stuck with those stats, I strongly suggest a SAD caster. The good news is, you can probably still act like a rogue other than sneak attacking (even then, there are ways...) because casters in 3E can basically be good at anything.

*EDIT: PHB page 8, "Rerolling" says if the sum of your modifiers is +0 or worse, you should get to reroll.