[3.5] Is there a guide for using magic to replicate being a Rogue?

[KillianHawkeye]

My Google skills weren't up to the task, so I'm asking the collective knowledge of the forum.

Are there any handbooks or guides for using a Wizard or other arcane spellcaster to replicate the skills of a Rogue? I know there are some spells that help with this. Unfortunately, these days I don't have time to do all the research myself, so I'm hoping there's someone who has put all of this info in one place already?

Or if anyone here has played this kind of character before, I'd happily take whatever build advice you guys have to offer.

Specifically, I'm wanting to make a character who covers the dungeon-delving side of the Rogue's skill set (searching, opening locks, disabling traps, sneaking around) but does so using magic either to boost his skills or to circumvent the need for skill checks entirely. Ideally, the character would also be capable in combat without being a blaster or controller.

I'm not afraid of multi-classing, and I assume that I'll probably take at least one level of Rogue along the way, but I'd like the character to be at least half spellcaster if possible.

So Playground, any ideas? :smallsmile:

[Troacctid]

Well the obvious answer is Beguiler, or an Arcane Trickster-style prestige class (Unseen Seer, Loredelver, etc). Or take a level of Rogue plus the Able Learner feat to keep your class skills. Then you don't need to use spells because you have the mundane skills.

But let's say you want to do it with just magic. You can find magical traps with detect magic and disarm them with dispel magic. Summon disposable minions with summon monster I and use them to face-check mundane traps, which you can then bypass with dimension door. Knock opens locks, or you can dimension door to the other side. Detect secret doors detects secret doors. And invisibility is your stealth, with arcane eye and clairvoyance/clairaudience as alternative scouting options. Core-only, baby, we did it!

You probably don't want to be hemorrhaging spell slots on all this stuff if you can help it though. Get some of them in wands to save slots. Take the Able Learner feat and drop some skill points in the appropriate skills. Feats like Summon Elemental, Vatic Gaze, Improved/Celestial/Planar Familiar, and Shape Soulmeld (Blink Shirt) can give you at-will versions of some of the basic effects. Detect magic and arcane sight can be made permanent with permanency. For wizards, you can use the Complete Champion ACF at level 5 to take the Kobold domain ability instead of your bonus feat, giving you the trapfinding ability of a rogue.

[KillianHawkeye]

Isn't Beguiler more about the social skills, though? I'm definitely not looking to focus on Enchantment spells. Illusions are fine, mostly for stealth, but there are other concerns as well. I'm worried that a lot of useful spells wouldn't be on the Beguiler's spell list.

And it doesn't need to be done ALL with magic, I'm also interested in using magic to augment skills. I'm also looking for more info about good non-core spells without diving through all the books. Like, I'm pretty sure I saw a spell in the Spell Compendium that lets you search an area (using your Search skill) instantaneously or something. More stuff like that would be cool.

Able Learner will probably be a must for this character. Not sure about having a familiar or not. For that Kobold domain thing, do you need to be a Kobold? Having trapfinding is important but the character I'm thinking of retiring is a Kobold Rogue already, so I don't want anything too similar....

[heavyfuel]

Isn't Beguiler more about the social skills, though? I'm definitely not looking to focus on Enchantment spells. Illusions are fine, mostly for stealth, but there are other concerns as well. I'm worried that a lot of useful spells wouldn't be on the Beguiler's spell list.

Not at all. Beguiler is a Scouting and Social powerhouse. 6+int skills on a int focused full caster means you'll probably have more skills than any other class in the game.

Illusions are great, and even if you don't want Enchantments (which are really undervalued tbh), you still get a bunch of other spells (Detect Secret Doors, Knock, Silence*, Spider Climb, Arcane Sight, Dispel Magic, Glibness!!!!*, Haste, Freedom of Movement*, etc)

All excellent spells for a roguish character, and the best part is you don't need to prepare or choose these spells, you just know all of them and can cast when they're needed.

There's a very good reason the Beguiler is considered a Tier 2 class.

*These spells aren't even on the Wizard list, but you get them anyway because Beguilers are that OP.

[Troacctid]

Isn't Beguiler more about the social skills, though? I'm definitely not looking to focus on Enchantment spells. Illusions are fine, mostly for stealth, but there are other concerns as well. I'm worried that a lot of useful spells wouldn't be on the Beguiler's spell list.
They have all the important rogue skills as well as trapfinding. It is true that they are missing some spells, but they also have Use Magic Device, so in a way they actually have all the spells? After all, wizards don't get most of those crazy cleric spells like Divine Insight, Guidance of the Avatar, and Wieldskill.


And it doesn't need to be done ALL with magic, I'm also interested in using magic to augment skills. I'm also looking for more info about good non-core spells without diving through all the books. Like, I'm pretty sure I saw a spell in the Spell Compendium that lets you search an area (using your Search skill) instantaneously or something. More stuff like that would be cool.
Those ones I mentioned above, and also Heroism. And I think there's one of those Primal spells that gives perception bonuses or something?

An item you might want is Third Eye Sense.


Able Learner will probably be a must for this character. Not sure about having a familiar or not.
Familiars are great though.


For that Kobold domain thing, do you need to be a Kobold? Having trapfinding is important but the character I'm thinking of retiring is a Kobold Rogue already, so I don't want anything too similar....
You do not have to be a kobold, but the only god that offers it is Kurtulmak.

[Aetis]

Nightstalker's Transformation!

[Maat Mons]

You do not have to be a kobold, but the only god that offers it is Kurtulmak.

And Kurtulmak only accepts kobolds as clerics. But you could still be a cleric of an ideal. Or take the hieratic of the faith feat.

You know, at one point, I was considering playing a kobold cleric of Astilabor, with the initiate of Astilabor feat and the heretic of the faith feat. Initiate of Astilabot gives diable devive, open lock, and search as cleric class skills, and adds knock as a cleric spell. And heretic of the faith lets you take the kobold domain, even though Astilabor doesn't offer it.

Or, I guess, just take the initiate of Astilabor feat. Clerics can already cast find traps, persist it even.

Also, at one point, I was considering using divine oracle to qualify for the trap sensitivity feat. Trap sensitivity lets you auto-search for traps when you walk near them, but it only works on mechanical traps. That's okay though. Arcane sight lets you spot magical traps, or any other magical thing, for that matter. And you can pick that up with the divine magician alternative class feature.

I mean, a trap could be disguised with the mystic aura spell. But that requires someone living in the dungeon to reapply it every few days. So maybe not that likely?

There's also a soulmeld that gives trapfinding. I've always thought it would be fun to combine that with a monkey familiar, and that feat that let's your familiar benefit from one of your soulbinds. Familiars can already use your skill ranks, so you'd have a very literal trap monkey.

[Bullet06320]

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?527676-Spells-that-save-you-from-taking-feats-or-investing-skill-points&p=22106824#post22106824
Spells-that-save-you-from-taking-feats-or-investing-skill-points
this thread may help a little

[Zaq]

Does the Psychic Rogue count?

[rel]

My go to rogue in a can:
Finding traps
keepers guide - ring, grants trapfinding and a +3 insight bonus to search, cost 24k
lens of detection - a sherlock holmes style giant magnifying glass, +5 untyped to search, 3.5k
goggles of minute seeing - +5 competence to search, 1.25k

assuming no trapfinding, no ranks in search and a modest +2 int bonus this loadout gives you a respectable +15 to search

You can upgrade the goggles to a crystal mask of detection (+10 competence) for 10k

and at high levels use a robe of eyes and a crystal mask of insightful detection which gives you a total bonus of 24 (+9 insight mask, +10 competence robe, +5 untyped lens) on top of the monstrous int bonus a high level character like a wizard might have.

Opening doors
In approximate use order
eternal wand of knock
adamantine hacksaw
crowbar
wand of knock
chime of opening
wand of stoneshape

you can add things like rust cubes or marvelous pigments if doors are still a problem.

Disarming traps
In general I safely set traps off instead of disarming them so I don't have a comprehensive list.
I find longspoon thieves tools, some rope, glue (alchemical not sovereign), a 10 foot pole and a wand of unseen servant gets you pretty far. Add a bag of tricks and a wand of summon monster III (for the ape) and you should be able to replicate most of what a rogue can do for very little gold beyond the initial investment.

[Ramza00]

Has someone mentioned not the fact you can get trapfinding via a domain but how you can get a domain granted ability via a feat? Via the planar touchstone feat in the planar handbook you can get one of the planar locations abilities and one of the abilities allow you to grab a domain granted ability without any connection to that deity, no beliefs to have, no deity to worship, it is you just intellectually get the ability via the feat and making this connection at the planar touchstone location.

[AvatarVecna]

If you don't go Beguiler because you think they're too focused on enchantment/illusion (...for some reason), you could go Artificer. 6+Int skill points per level, a nice skill list, Trapfinding, item creation, and infusions! It's been shown you can do a pretty good job as Artificer even without crafting anything (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?427628), but combining that with item crafting would allow for some significant "I'm pretending to be some other class" options. Something I don't think I've seen mentioned yet is the Ranger spell "Hunter's Eye" which grants SA.

[Nifft]

Artificer. 6+Int skill points per level

I think they're only (4+Int).

But yeah, great class.

[Thurbane]

Find Traps (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/findTraps.htm) also appears on the Jester spell list, and so is eligible for an Eternal Wand.

I'm also going to recommend Beguiler: they have a lot of spells on their list to emulate a Rogue (not to mention inbuilt Trapfinding and relevant skills), and they can always UMD spells that they don't have...

[Ramza00]

One nice thing about Beguiler is they also have UMD, so if you can get some of the best divine spells that do things with skills on wands you can use your already large skill list to do things, and then use magic items such as wands to do them even better quite easily.

And while some people Prestige out of Beguiler in order to have more offensive options there are other choices you could do which are full casters / near full casters and with 6+ skillpoints. For example I am a big fan of Urban Savant which is a 9/9 casting class or a 9/10 class (the last level you do not get casting) and it too has 6+ skill points plus cool class abilities (aka you become an awesome city spy and you gain more uses of the knowledge skills to get metagame knowledge about statistics and your party can also do more damage similar to an archivists dark knowledge.)

----

I can't find it on the internet anymore even with the web archive sites but Logic Ninja had this great TWF build that was mostly a cleric but it did more damage than a cleric for it had lots of off hand damage but not specifically from sneak attack so this damage worked on more enemies. It was a well balanced character if I recall not the best at what it did but it was a jack of all trades build while having enough damage to easily drop enemies.

It was something like ""I am become Death": Kali's Ordained Champion -- a TWF blender" by Logic Ninja

Well why I am bringing this build up is that if I recall many of those tricks also apply to rogue copy cat builds if you want to make something with more skills, less damage, but still better than a rogue and still get at least 75% casting.

[tiercel]

Familiars are great though.

The irony of familiars is that they are often better on classes that don’t normally get them (e.g. bard, beguiler, even ranger — via Cityscape Web Enhancement Urban Companion ACF) because of the “extra skillmonkey” aspect due to shared skill ranks.

UMD means that a beguiler’s or bard’s familiar (via Obtain Familiar) may wind up as “more magical” (and seeing more use) than a sor/wiz familiar, since UMD-character familiars can at least be using those extra actions to be dropping low-level buffs from wands on a regular basis (while still staying well out of harm’s way); a standard Wizard familiar will generally sit in a pocket quietly acting like Great Fortitude that also gives either +2 to trained Knowledge checks or a Knowledge check reroll with a much lower Int bonus, once “speak with master” is unlocked.

[Mordaedil]

The irony of familiars is that they are often better on classes that don’t normally get them (e.g. bard, beguiler, even ranger — via Cityscape Web Enhancement Urban Companion ACF) because of the “extra skillmonkey” aspect due to shared skill ranks.

UMD means that a beguiler’s or bard’s familiar (via Obtain Familiar) may wind up as “more magical” (and seeing more use) than a sor/wiz familiar, since UMD-character familiars can at least be using those extra actions to be dropping low-level buffs from wands on a regular basis (while still staying well out of harm’s way); a standard Wizard familiar will generally sit in a pocket quietly acting like Great Fortitude that also gives either +2 to trained Knowledge checks or a Knowledge check reroll with a much lower Int bonus, once “speak with master” is unlocked.
Asking for a friend, would a Jaunter qualify for Obtain familiar feat? I think it does, due to the blurb in Complete Arcane on qualifying using casterlevel, but I'm not 100% sure. Said Jaunter is otherwise just a warblade.

[tiercel]

Asking for a friend, would a Jaunter qualify for Obtain familiar feat? I think it does, due to the blurb in Complete Arcane on qualifying using casterlevel, but I'm not 100% sure. Said Jaunter is otherwise just a warblade.

Straight up, I don’t think Jaunter (Expedition to the Demonweb Pits) qualifies, since the PrC nowhere specifies a caster level; Complete Arcane re: warlocks qualifying keys off the fact that warlocks explicitly do have a caster level, just not spells.

Having said that, it wouldn’t be particularly insane or OP for a DM to allow a Jaunter to take Obtain Familiar, in my opinion — it’s just probably a houserule.

[Troacctid]

Straight up, I don’t think Jaunter (Expedition to the Demonweb Pits) qualifies, since the PrC nowhere specifies a caster level; Complete Arcane re: warlocks qualifying keys off the fact that warlocks explicitly do have a caster level, just not spells.

Having said that, it wouldn’t be particularly insane or OP for a DM to allow a Jaunter to take Obtain Familiar, in my opinion — it’s just probably a houserule.
All spell-like and supernatural abilities have a caster level. If none is specified, it defaults to being equal to your HD. However, Obtain Familiar specifically requires your casting to be arcane, and spell-like abilities are not considered arcane or divine.

[Mordaedil]

I ask because I read this blurb in Complete Arcane.

In the context of a feat or a prestige class requirement, a caster level prerequisite (such as "caster level 5th") measures the character's ability to channel a minimum amount of magical power. For feats or prestige classes requiring a minimum caster level, creatures that use spell-like abilities or invocations instead of spells use either their fixed caster level or their class level to determine qualification. For Example, Craft Wondrous Item has a requirement of caster level 3rd, so both a 3rd level warlock and a nixie(caster level 4th for its charm person spell-like ability) meet the requirement.

Since the Jaunters abilities are all Spell-like abilities, that seems to imply they qualify, by this reading of the rule?

[Zaq]

I ask because I read this blurb in Complete Arcane.

In the context of a feat or a prestige class requirement, a caster level prerequisite (such as "caster level 5th") measures the character's ability to channel a minimum amount of magical power. For feats or prestige classes requiring a minimum caster level, creatures that use spell-like abilities or invocations instead of spells use either their fixed caster level or their class level to determine qualification. For Example, Craft Wondrous Item has a requirement of caster level 3rd, so both a 3rd level warlock and a nixie(caster level 4th for its charm person spell-like ability) meet the requirement.

Since the Jaunters abilities are all Spell-like abilities, that seems to imply they qualify, by this reading of the rule?

SLAs and Sus all have caster levels, so feats and the rare PrC that use just “caster level” as a prereq are remarkably easy to meet with miscellaneous abilities.

As stated, though, game elements that specify (for example) “arcane caster level” are very hard to meet with SLAs or Sus. You basically need a specific exception calling out your specific SLA as arcane, and those are very rare.

[Mordaedil]

I see, so it'd be technically a DM fiat to allow our Jaunter that feat, but considered acceptable by most(unless there's some heavy abuse familiar use that the DM is particularly wary of).

Good news for our game is that our Jaunter just wants a pet because he is envious of mine.

[KillianHawkeye]

Okay, I've taken a closer look at the Beguiler. Looks like a more solid base than I was giving it credit for.

But it got me thinking... what do people think of Beguiler/Wizard/Ultimate Magus?

Because while having UMD to get the other spells is doable, it's basically a money cost that maybe could be better spent on other things IMO.

[Thurbane]

Beguiler/Wizard is probably the best entry into Ultimate Magus. You'll sacrifice skill points, but it will definitely open up your spell options...

[Nifft]

Okay, I've taken a closer look at the Beguiler. Looks like a more solid base than I was giving it credit for.

But it got me thinking... what do people think of Beguiler/Wizard/Ultimate Magus?

Because while having UMD to get the other spells is doable, it's basically a money cost that maybe could be better spent on other things IMO.

Beguiler / Wizard / Ultimate Magus can be excellent.

Two mainstream Beguiler enhancers are taking Mindbender 1 (and the Mindsight feat) at level 6 for Telepathy 100 ft. and also to postpone Advanced Learning at Beguiler 6 for a higher-level spell, and the other is being a Gnome to get into Shadowcraft Mage (and if you can tolerate lactose, add the Arcane Dilettante feat for the Luck domain to get access to Miracle).