Pondering on a rogue

[Llewelyn]

I'm toying with a Poison Dusk Lizardfolk rogue-type. High Dex and Int, followed by Cha and Con probably. The problem I'm running into is where to go once I finish the base classes.. er.. base. He's CN, and the following should give a good idea of the personality i think:

Self-Introduction: *leans back, a bit of a reptillian smirk on his muzzle* So, I hear you've a need for a, shall we say, skillful individual. *idly draws a dagger, watching the way light glints off it as he talks* The name's Asandrix, and despite appearances, you won't find much better. You see, I just hate not being able to go where I want to go, so I've made it my business to see that doesn't happen. *starts to twirl the dagger absent-mindedly* When it comes to a fight, I don't think you'll be disappointed either. My size and appearance tends to lead people to underestimating me, which *suddenly tosses dagger at a nearby dartboard, hitting a bullseye without even looking* can be fatal.

Now the base I was looking at going with is Rogue 4/Swashbuckler 3, and take Daring Outlaw when I can.

After that I was looking at Invisible Blade, which gives Int to AC as long as I'm unarmored, which works well with the +5 to Hide with skin showing racial ability. The main issue there is that it requires two ranged feats I'd seldom be using.

Exemplar also jumped out at me on the skills side of things, but my feats are tight if I go IB, especially if I want to follow the TWF tree. On the other hand, that's a lot of skill points, a lot of skills, and the "free" take 10s make for very delicious icing.

Thief-Acrobat is almost as good for rogue-ish skills, and easier to get into, but the class abilities don't seem like anything special. Kip Up can be duplicated by a skill trick, leaving the fast Acrobatics and Ac bonus as the only real draws that I can see.

There's also Master Thrower, but it's notoriously hard to set up a ranged sneak attack. The Weak Spot ability though is delicious headshot. It also lacks on skills a bit, like IB does, and it wouldn't be near as useful until I could afford daggers of returning.

I've also eyed Dragon Devotee a little, as far as helping to qualify for the above PrCs, but I do run into the issue with IB that I can't count on the "Special" condition happening, which means taking it before the starting level for my character(which AFAIK right now is 8 after the LA). The DD also does give a very slight bit of spellcasting.

Given the above, any suggestions on which path to follow? I'm trying to keep to a balance of skills and combat capability, if possible erring on the side of skills, and of course fit the character concept in the blurb above.

[Tweekinator]

I'd steer clear of Invisible Blade; it has been errata'd into uselessness. I believe what the errata did was only allow usage of the feint as a free action ability once per round, while keeping the extremely pointless ranged combat feats for it.

[deathbyhokie]

Exemplar also jumped out at me on the skills side of things, but my feats are tight if I go IB, especially if I want to follow the TWF tree. On the other hand, that's a lot of skill points, a lot of skills, and the "free" take 10s make for very delicious icing.

Thief-Acrobat is almost as good for rogue-ish skills, and easier to get into, but the class abilities don't seem like anything special. Kip Up can be duplicated by a skill trick, leaving the fast Acrobatics and Ac bonus as the only real draws that I can see.


I've played around with combining these two, with decent results. You end up with 4 "take 10's" from TA, plus 10+Int from Exemplar. TA also gives you Defensive Roll 2/day, along with fast acrobatics. Plus you'll get Improved Evasion, and an untyped +2 to Defense.

Then, pick your favorite movement skill (Jump for me), and use that for your starting Skill Artistry. Revel in your ability to get anywhere you want, under any circumstances. And enjoy Cha to Fort saves, and Int to Reflex saves

[ZeroNumerous]

Rogue 16/Swashbucker 3 is good too.

Savvy Rogue and Crippling Strike gives you 2 Strength damage a cut regardless of the circumstances.

Opportunist gives you a free hit in melee whenever someone else hits your enemy. Savvy Rogue and Combat Reflexes lets you do this 1+Dex Mod times per round.

All with 8d6 sneak attack and 8+INT skills. Oh, and you get +4 dodge bonus. But thats hardly relevant.

[Llewelyn]

Only problem with Rogue 16/Swash 3 is the Favored Class of Poison Dusks is Ranger, so I'd be eating XP penalty for a long time.

Toying with Exemplar and the T-A I've ended up with Rogue 4/Swash 3/T-A 4/Exemplar 4/??? 4... if I want +16 BAB anyways. The last class needs to be something full BAB for that to work though, and I'm not sure what would fit yet.

Another option I've looked at is Subbing 3 Uncanny Trickster for some combination of 2 Exemplar and/or T-A levels, but that leaves me at +15 BAB at most, as does leaving the UT out and going for 5 T-A levels.

[deathbyhokie]

Only problem with Rogue 16/Swash 3 is the Favored Class of Poison Dusks is Ranger, so I'd be eating XP penalty for a long time.

Toying with Exemplar and the T-A I've ended up with Rogue 4/Swash 3/T-A 4/Exemplar 4/??? 4... if I want +16 BAB anyways. The last class needs to be something full BAB for that to work though, and I'm not sure what would fit yet.

Another option I've looked at is Subbing 3 Uncanny Trickster for some combination of 2 Exemplar and/or T-A levels, but that leaves me at +15 BAB at most, as does leaving the UT out and going for 5 T-A levels.

If you're looking for a high BAB, while still keeping a decent number of skills, Dread Pirate isn't the worst call you could make. Discuss with your GM to see if you could make a variation that functions more like Robin Hood than Jack Sparrow.

Offhand, I'd say drop the Ship requirement, and change all instances of "Profession: SAilor" to either Hide, or "Profession: Brigand". The rest of the crunch works just as well on land as it does sea.

[Person_Man]

LA races are generally a bad idea. +2 Dex, +2 Con, -2 Cha, +3 natural armor, and some skill bonuses isn't really worth +1 LA in my book.

If you're wedded to a Poison Dusk Lizardfolk for fluff reasons and your DM cares about Favored Class, I suggest going with Swordsage or Ranger/PrC instead. With the right feats, you can pull off much higher damage, with almost comparable skills (you might want to multi-class for UMD).

[Llewelyn]

LA races are generally a bad idea. +2 Dex, +2 Con, -2 Cha, +3 natural armor, and some skill bonuses isn't really worth +1 LA in my book.

If you're wedded to a Poison Dusk Lizardfolk for fluff reasons and your DM cares about Favored Class, I suggest going with Swordsage or Ranger/PrC instead. With the right feats, you can pull off much higher damage, with almost comparable skills (you might want to multi-class for UMD).

As far as the Swordsage, I don't know if ToB is allowed so I'm trying not to actively use it until I know for sure. Regardless though, both it and Ranger, while their skill points are close, are lacking in certain things, such as Uncanny Dodge, Trapfinding, Open Lock and Disable Device as Class skills, and so on that are a integral part of this character concept. I already have a skillful-type warrior(combat first, skills second) all prepared if that's the role that needs filling.

This character is supposed to be all about the skillset first, and combat ability second. The swashbuckler levels work well IMO despite it's skill problems since it gives free weapon finesse, and int to damage, both of which boost off the Int or Dex stats, which are this character's main traits, and then for the cherry I get increased SA from Daring Outlaw. Swordsage and Ranger(though mostly the former) operate off Wisdom, which is this character's dump stat. It's more of a Nightsong Infiltrator compared to your Nightsong Enforcer suggestion, to use a PrC based analogy. (As a side note, I don't think I'd be able to use either Nightsong class, as to my knowledge no other member of the party is a Nightsong and the way the class reads I think the DM would want me to have a "partner" for that. The team-based abilities don't really match the character personality-wise anyways.)

So are there any other full BAB classes that would work well with this concept/build to round it off? Looking at what I have so far it looks like something to take advantage of the "getting anywhere, under any condition" would be ideal. Tactical Soldier looks interesting except for the Feat reqs(Most of my feats are used up between the TWF chain, Daring Outlaw, Force of Personality, and Skill Focus for Exemplar) and skills(2+ :smalleek: )

*edit* Though I suppose Ranger is one way to nab those last 4 levels, if I sub out animal companion and spells. Don't know that it feels quite right though, so what else is there?
*Edit 2* rangers' feats also reminded me of Horizon Walker, which looks like it could be worthwhile too, and would fill in the last feat slot nicely, though it delays Imp TWF by 3 levels to work it in.

[Llewelyn]

After talking with a couple friends and toying with ideas last night, I ended up coming up with this progression:

Rogue 4/Swashbuckler 5/Thief-Acrobat 4/Battle Trickster 2/Exemplar 4
1 - Rogue) Two-Weapon Fighting
2 - Swashbuckler)
3 - Swashbuckler) Combat Reflexes
4 - Rogue) (Clever Improviser)
5 - Swashbuckler)
6 - Rogue) Daring Outlaw
7 - Rogue)
8 - Thief-Acrobat)
----------------------
9 - Thief-Acrobat) ITWF (Acrobatic Backstab)
10 - Thief-Acrobat)
11 - Thief-Acrobat)
12 - Battle Trickster) Skill Focus(???), (Escape Attack?/Quick Escape?)
13 - Battle Trickster) Vexing Flanker
14 - Exemplar)
15 - Exemplar) Adaptive Flanker
16 - Exemplar)
17 - Exemplar)
18 - Swashbuckler) GTWF
19 - Swashbuckler)

The stuff in parentheses is the skill tricks I'd choose at that level, though I'm not sure which would be good yet for the last trick. While I hate to lose the Force of Personality boost to Will, the Adaptive Flanker chain seems to dovetail nicely concept-wise with everything else. Any thoughts on this progression?