[3.5] Rogue-less Party Ideas

[Thurbane]

So,

I'll be running a one-short/mini-campaign for my group soon.

It's looking like there will be no Rogue/skillmonkey type.

What are some gear/spell/other options to deal with the gap? Adventure will involve dungeon crawling.

Subject to last minute change, party will be as follows (specifically a monstrous party):


Gloura Bard 1 (has skill points, but mainly social skills; no ranks in UMD because reasons)
Centaur Barbarian 4
Domovoi Favoured Soul 6 (or possibly Marrulurk Favored Soul 6) (this is an NPC, mainly focused on buffing and healing)
The 4th character isn't decided yet, but likely to be a Goatfolk or Baphitaur martial type.

...I'm assuming at this point the 4th character won't be a Rogue-like. If the 4th player takes a healer/buffer type, the Favored Soul will switch to a Warmage.

Each character will have 49,000gp in gear.

No hirelings/cohorts/followers etc.

Main things I'm thinking about are opening locks/doors, finding secret doors/traps, and disarming/dealing with traps.

I know most of these can be handled with spells, magic items and mundane gear, but what would you suggest?

Cheers - T

[gogogome]

An adamantine weapon on the barbarian will deal with all of the doors, locks, and physical traps.

[Palanan]

Did you decide which module you'll be running for this?

Just interested in what you ended up choosing.

[WhamBamSam]

An adamantine weapon, or a Stone Dragon Belt of Mountain Hammer will break down doors and such pretty well.

It feels a little pricey for a consumable, but if you don’t spend a lot of time in trapped dungeons, a Kobold Domain Draught will give someone Trapfinding for 24 hours. Maybe use Guidance of the Avatar or something to juice the search checks.

[Thurbane]

Find Traps appears on the Jester spell list, so maybe an eternal wand?


Did you decide which module you'll be running for this?

Just interested in what you ended up choosing.

Probably just stringing together some combo of the free online modules...

Environmental Impact
Bad Moon Waning
The Temple of Redcliff
To Quell the Rising Storm
Tiger's Palace
A Harvest of Evil
Into the Frozen Waste
The Crumbling Hall of the Frost Giant Jarl
The Sea Witch

[heavyfuel]

A lv 6 character willing to spend two feats can get trapfinding via Shape Soulmeld: Theft Gloves + Open Chakra: Hand

A wand of summon monsters 1 can deal with traps as well, just far less effectively.

Doors and chests can be dealt with by Initiators or adamantine weapons like others have said.

Party-face skills can be acquired by myriad of classes

[Maat Mons]

Edit: Blast it! Ninja'd!

There's the old Kobold Cloistered Cleric, so the healer/buffer can also be the skillmonkey. Personally, I like the Heretic of Astilabor angle, for opening locks and explaining why he had to flee from kobold society.

Anyone could take the Planar Touchstone feat to get Trapfinding.

The Barbarian could use the Trapkiller ACF to trade Trap Sense for Trapfinding.

With the Shape Soulmeld and Open Least Chakra feats, anyone can get Trapfinding, plus a small bonus to Disable Device and Open Lock. If you don't like the Kobold domain, you can combine this with Initiate of Gond for an entirely different spin on the trapfinding, lock-opening Cloistered Cleric. Probably an Azurin from Lantan.

[Clementx]

Don't put tons of instant death traps and invincible locks in the adventure? Replace prewritten traps with an equal CR combat (like from a random encounter table or copy another) or puzzle. Put keys to all locks somewhere in the area. Guards pocket to be easy, mixed into junk on the other side of the building to be hard.

Don't force your players into playing parts of the game they aren't interested in.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Don't put tons of instant death traps and invincible locks in the adventure? Replace prewritten traps with an equal CR combat (like from a random encounter table or copy another) or puzzle. Put keys to all locks somewhere in the area. Guards pocket to be easy, mixed into junk on the other side of the building to be hard.

Don't force your players into playing parts of the game they aren't interested in.

Eh, this isn't entirely wrong. I'll agree that you should skim the module for SoD traps and change them out for attrition options. Past that though, there are plenty of ways to go past or around the things your class isn't good at.

Several people have pointed out how to get trapfinding or an equivalent to come at the problem directly.

Summoned minions to throw down the path ahead of you when you suspect traps is a simple method of at least mitigating attrition since you can either go around the traps after they're set off or at least not let them shoot at you flat-footed if they're resetting traps.

Let the barb go first and just tank it is always an option too. Might put a hurt on your healing resources but it's there.

Locked doors only require picking if you're not willing to spend the time and effort to knock them down or because you're concerned about the potential consequences of doing so. Same for locked chests and drawers. You only need the subtle option if you actually want to be subtle.

Don't conflate lack of concern for a lack of desire to interact with a particular subsytem. Traps are -rarely- deadly beyond the lowest levels and locks never have been something anyone was concerned over unless they were looking at a cloak-and-dagger style game in the first place.

[YellowJohn]

You have a Barbarian.
The 'Trapkiller' ACF in Dungeonscape lets Barbarians trade Trap Sense for Trap Finding with Non-Magical traps only. They find them with Survival checks and 'Disarm' them with attack rolls. For Magical traps, there's Detect/Dispel Magic.

For Doors, Adamantine weaponry or Stone Dragon Belt, as already mentioned. These will also let you mess with the runes in any magic traps you dispel to stop them resetting.
A Chime of Opening will let you open 10 locked doors for 3K
An Eternal Wand of Knock is 4,420gp, 2/day. The Bard can activate it because they cast Arcane Spells.

[Vizzerdrix]

2 jars of shapesand, an adamantine dagger, and a wand of summon celestial monkey.

[Troacctid]

Both find traps and detect snares and pits can help with trapfinding. The former should be available to the favored soul. Detect magic is of course good for magical traps, and you can get it at will with either the Vatic Gaze (PH2), Magic Sensitive (CM), or Scion of the Twelve (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/frcc/20070620) feat, or with a third eye of psionic sight (1,000 gp). A simple wand of detect magic will get you pretty far, too.

Rod of escape (MIC) is 3,500 gp and should take care of your lock-opening needs. Methild's harp (MoF) for 4,100 gp is also a good option if your bard has Perform (strings).

For finding secret doors and compartments, easy enough: a wand of detect secret doors is only 750 gp.

[Xasten]

If you're willing to house rule, consolidate disable device and open lock into a single skill and make trapfinding a feat that grants said skill. I did this years ago, and it's taken a huge load off of character creation for my groups.

[liquidformat]

LOCKPICKING RING gives knock once per day which is enough for most campaigns that aren't heavily focused on rogue skills.
Also Trapkiller is a great ACF for barbs; if the Other person goes Ranger there is a trapfinding ACF from dungeonscape for Rangers too
Don't run a campaign that is rogue skill heavy...

[Troacctid]

LOCKPICKING RING gives knock once per day which is enough for most campaigns that aren't heavily focused on rogue skills.
Also Trapkiller is a great ACF for barbs; if the Other person goes Ranger there is a trapfinding ACF from dungeonscape for Rangers too
Don't run a campaign that is rogue skill heavy...
Lockpicking ring is useful if you have a character who actually invests in Open Lock and can make use of the +5 bonus. Otherwise, rod of escape is cheaper and has twice as many activations per day, plus the ability to help with jumping and underwatering.

[gkathellar]

Don't put tons of instant death traps and invincible locks in the adventure? Replace prewritten traps with an equal CR combat (like from a random encounter table or copy another) or puzzle. Put keys to all locks somewhere in the area. Guards pocket to be easy, mixed into junk on the other side of the building to be hard.

Don't force your players into playing parts of the game they aren't interested in.

Pretty much this. Traps and locks as they're handled by default are one of the least interesting parts of the game in general, with no narrative or intellectual component and little contribution to play besides imposing a "you must have these skills to avoid attrition" tax on the party. Cutting them out entirely won't hurt anything.

That said, if you're desperate to include traps, make them into puzzles for players to solve, potentially with skill checks other than the usual ones.

[Thurbane]

Rod of Escape is an interesting option. Knock 2/day, + Jump 2/day and a 1/day sphere that repels water. 3500gp.

I had been looking at an Eternal Wand of Knock, but at 4200gp, the Rod is a better option.

Although... it is a Trapsmith 1 spell, so technically you could have an Eternal Wand of Knock for 820gp, depending on your cheese tolerance.

[rel]

If the party has 50kGP each they have enough money to solve the traps issue.

Point them towards the relevant items and be liberal in the amount of information you provide when they find a trap so they can get creative in breaking them but otherwise run things as normal.

My default 'rogue in a can' is:
keepers guide - ring that grants trapfinding and +3 insight to search
goggles of minute seeing - grants +5 competence to search
lens of detection - +5 untyped to search
wand of knock - open doors
wand of knock eternal - open a few doors each day for free
chime of opening - open the hard to open doors
adamantine weapon - break stubborn doors and traps
wand of summon monster 2 - set off traps
wand of unseen servant - set off traps

add a few hundred GP of mundane rogue equipment and you can get through most traps with just the gear.
If someone actually took the search skill then I'd be surprised if there was any trap in a published module that would give them trouble.

[Thurbane]

Where can I find Keeper's Guide? I feel like this is the item I knew I saw once that granted Trapfinding, then I've never been able to find since!

The only other reference to it I can find is an old post of yours. Is it a Pathfinder item? Dragon Mag? Obscure FR splatbook?

Found it! Dragon Compendium p. 127. :smallbiggrin:

[Thurbane]

OK, so party ended up being:


Gloura Bard 1
Centaur Barbarian 4
Yuan-ti Pureblood Ranger 4
Marrulurk Favored Soul 6

...the Ranger took the Trap Expert ACF from Dungeonscape, so that helps.

[liquidformat]

OK, so party ended up being:


Gloura Bard 1
Centaur Barbarian 4
Yuan-ti Pureblood Ranger 4
Marrulurk Favored Soul 6

...the Ranger took the Trap Expert ACF from Dungeonscape, so that helps.

just give the Barbarian the trap slayer ACF as a bonus class feature, they will most likely want to have survival maxed anyways.

Alternatively, Ranger also has a trap finding ACF you could give that to the Ranger for free, though that now means they are getting two more skills that need to be pumped out of their 6 skill points/ level.

maybe also combine hide move silently into stealth, listen spot into perception, and balance jump tumble into acrobatics that way there are now more points to go around.

[Soranar]

The ranger can also trade his animal companion for a familiar (urban familiar ACF found online)

The familiar is exactly like a normal familiar except that it gets more hitpoints (2/3 instead of half) and it'll have its master's skills so it can literally doublecheck for traps and help search and disarm, I've used this combo before and it's pretty damn good.

[Thurbane]

The ranger can also trade his animal companion for a familiar (urban familiar ACF found online)

The familiar is exactly like a normal familiar except that it gets more hitpoints (2/3 instead of half) and it'll have its master's skills so it can literally doublecheck for traps and help search and disarm, I've used this combo before and it's pretty damn good.

Cool idea - the Ranger has already taken the ACF from PHB2 that lets him count enemies as flanked, but I'll see if he wants to change it.

[Mordante]

IMHO it's a mistake to adjust the party to the story. You should adjust the story to the party.

[Thurbane]

IMHO it's a mistake to adjust the party to the story. You should adjust the story to the party.

I'll be running pre-written modules.

Also, verisimilitude.

I mean, I'm not going to plop them into an adventure like Tomb of Horrors where they will absolutely, positively fail without top notch trap-beating abilities, but getting hit by the odd trap every now and then doesn't seem insurmountable.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I mean, I'm not going to plop them into an adventure like Tomb of Horrors where they will absolutely, positively fail without top notch trap-beating abilities, but getting hit by the odd trap every now and then doesn't seem insurmountable.
I agree. Even aside from the options already mentioned here any party can replace the skillmonkey with a wand of SM 1 and an adamantine weapon for all but the most trap-heavy adventures.

Sure, it'll probably be a little less comfortable, but that's the price you pay for not covering the "expected" roles.
It's no different to not having a divine caster to heal and cure status effects or lacking an arcane caster (or equivalent) for the utility imo.
You should make sure the campaign is doable for your party but cutting them out entirely is going too far imo. Traps and locked doors are as much part of the genre as dragons and magic.
And overcoming these challenges despite the lacking tools can be fun for the players too.

[Particle_Man]

As another alternative you could have them all gestalt with rogue for free.