Help with a Half-Orc Rogue (Skulking Slayer)

[MindTheGap97]

Hello everyone, we are about to start a new campaign and we rolled class and race at random, I ended up with a Half-Orc Rogue so I decided to make him a Skulking Slayer (maybe Scout as well, they do seem to have some synergy), problem is, I never played a Rogue before, so I decided to ask you guys for help, how would you go around building such a character?

Some information:
-25 point buy
-1 extra feat at level 1
-two traits plus one campaign trait
-campaign is an amped up Rise of the Runelords
-games tend to be pretty brutal, character deaths occur often

[Kurald Galain]

Skulking Slayer gives a great action economy advantage, as on every attack you can tack on a dirty trick for free. You can capitalize on this with the Dirty Fighting feat (so you don't provoke) and Rovagug's Thunder (so you deal damage on each SA).

The catch is that this foregoes your sneak attack damage, so it works best with just a single level in rogue and then switch to any other class.

[Geddy2112]

I second you are probably best dipping rogue, then going into something else. Brawler, monk, or certain fighter archetypes would be good if you want to capitalize on the dirty trick/steal maneuver. Albeit a bit feat intensive, the kitsune style feat tree allows you to get two dirty trick conditions at once. Another cool feat tree to consider is the cornagun smash, allowing you to throw intimidate

If your DM allows and you are set on straight rogue, run unchained rogue. It is a straight upgrade from rogue, particularly at higher levels. Skulking slayer prefers strength focus as it wants to use a 2 handed weapon(if you get to level 3) but you could even get around that with an elven curved blade or something. Even then, the d8 vs d6 is not the biggest thing in the world but you get it in trade for trap sense which is always a trade. Being able to feint as a swift before a charge at level 9 is useless if you go with scout as you always proc flat footed on the charge at level 4 scout. Scout is a great archetype for any rogue, and if you take it its even more reason to jump ship on the class after level 4.

Since your campaign is highly lethal, you can look into the deathless tree, allowing you to fight at no penalty till your neg hp=con. Far more useful on other classes, but nothing is saying you can multiclass into barbarian,vivisectionist alchemist or even paladin to really build a hard to kill monster. Half orc's being able to get endurance as a bonus feat at level 1 helps pay the diehard feat tax and unlock the tree.

If you jump ship after rogue 1 and going to a heavy or med armor class you can go lower dex and wear medium/heavy armor. Evasion at level 2 limits you to light, favoring a dex focus but not ruling out strength. Unless you are going to go into a class that is int based(vivisection alchemist) you can dump int-if you want a style feat or need combat expertise tree dip/multiclass lore warden fighter or brawler. Dump cha too unless you are going to class out into something that needs it-you have skill ranks and cha skills as class skills allowing you to overcome a -1 or -2.

[MindTheGap97]

So maybe should I go 4-5 levels of Rogue (5 would give me a nice 3d6 SA damage) and then jump over to Fighter maybe? The Dirty Fighter looks pretty nice (and flavorful) but trades away weapon training which maybe I want? There is the Lore Warden archetype. Slayer is also an option, it would progress my Sneak Attack a bit and give me some nice free feats and it would make me a Skulking Slayer/Slayer which is kinda funny.

EDIT: There is a racial trait that swaps weapon proficiencies for a bunch of weapons including a spiked chain, which can be finessed so it could be a viable dex to damage weapon

[Geddy2112]

I forgot the spiked chain being a finessable weapon, that's certainly the ticket for urogue! At 4th level, 4rogue gets another rogue talent as well as debilitating injury, which allows you to stack on even more debuffing with your dirty tricks. You would also have the scouts charge from the scout archetype letting you proc dirty tricks/sneak attacks on the charge.The 5th level sneak attack increase is not worth enough to justify staying in rogue, but the rogue's edge skill unlock might be. If you go into an intimidation build the intimidate unlock is solid, and there are some others. If you don't see any that you need for your build I would bail to another class.

Dirty fighter only shines late game when you can use dirty tricks as attacks(9th level fighter, 13th total) and then at 13 when multiple conditions stack. With any other build, you could get to kitsune tricks much faster to double dirty trick. Lore warden gives free combat expertise but it wont' count as the INT prerequisite for kitsune tricks, however it does give nice bonuses to combat maneuvers. The rest of the abilities there are meh, but a decent dip for 1-3 levels.

Slayer is interesting, and it would be worth asking if your DM will stack bounty hunter with skulking slayer and possibly getting the chance to dirty trick twice if you forgo the sneak attack dice.

[Kurald Galain]

So maybe should I go 4-5 levels of Rogue (5 would give me a nice 3d6 SA damage) and then jump over to Fighter maybe?

The catch is that Skulking Slayer's dirty trick negates ALL of your sneak attack damage. Therefore it is best on a build that does only a minimum of sneak attack damage. The alternative would be to do more SA damage but take a different archetype.

[MindTheGap97]

I forgot the spiked chain being a finessable weapon, that's certainly the ticket for urogue! At 4th level, 4rogue gets another rogue talent as well as debilitating injury, which allows you to stack on even more debuffing with your dirty tricks. You would also have the scouts charge from the scout archetype letting you proc dirty tricks/sneak attacks on the charge.The 5th level sneak attack increase is not worth enough to justify staying in rogue, but the rogue's edge skill unlock might be. If you go into an intimidation build the intimidate unlock is solid, and there are some others. If you don't see any that you need for your build I would bail to another class.

Dirty fighter only shines late game when you can use dirty tricks as attacks(9th level fighter, 13th total) and then at 13 when multiple conditions stack. With any other build, you could get to kitsune tricks much faster to double dirty trick. Lore warden gives free combat expertise but it wont' count as the INT prerequisite for kitsune tricks, however it does give nice bonuses to combat maneuvers. The rest of the abilities there are meh, but a decent dip for 1-3 levels.

Slayer is interesting, and it would be worth asking if your DM will stack bounty hunter with skulking slayer and possibly getting the chance to dirty trick twice if you forgo the sneak attack dice.

My DM said no on double dipping on Dirty Tricks, bummer :c


The catch is that Skulking Slayer's dirty trick negates ALL of your sneak attack damage. Therefore it is best on a build that does only a minimum of sneak attack damage. The alternative would be to do more SA damage but take a different archetype.

Well, while that may be true SA has some synergy with the Blind Dirty Trick, you either take their whole turn away or full attack 'em into hell the next round, that looks like a win-win scenario to me.

Routine would be like this (when its all online)
Charge->Dirty Trick to Blind and Entangle->Opponent either spends a full-round action removing the conditions or moves away which gets you a free AoO with the chain->Dirty Trick and make him Pinned and something else.

So that added SA from Slayer might be decently helpful, sticking in Rogue for a 5th level would not because you miss out on another point of BAB....