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BlackRabite
2008-02-07, 05:04 PM
I'm currently playing in a campaign with a Good aligned party, most of us are extremely adept players as far as ingenuity and mechanics goes, but we mostly play low level campaigns. They tend to die off between level 10 and 15.

We're playing an odd mix this time on purpose to sort of offset how badly we can break the game in our favor. One of us is a Paladin 5/Fighter 6 with 3 levels dumped into a Half-Dragon template. We have a Spirit Shaman 14, a Rogue 14 (me) and a Sorcerer 14.

Everyone but the sorcerer is very effective, she is focusing almost exclusively on fire based evocations, which is a bit maddening for the rest of us. As a result of this I am heavily focused on skills, especially UMD. The Paladin/Fighter is a charge/lance build and he took a couple of feats to get a Dragon as his Special Mount. The Spirit Shaman mostly just buffs the Fighter and Myself like nuts and stands in the corner casting Snakes Swiftness Mass or summoning elementals.

Anyway, it looks like we're going to stick with these guys into possibly epic levels and I'm not sure which way to take my rogue. At the moment I fill in the batman role as well as the heavy single target Damage role. I use my skills more often than anything in normal encounters and spend most of my time in BBEG encounters setting up for full attacks to try and take him down quick.

I need some advise on any PrC's, templates, magic anythings or feats that I should heavily consider taking in my immediate future. I'm concerned about my ability to hit things and survive hits when I manage to not kill something in with a full attack. I do decently enough on encounters and I have a special scroll-sword thing that lets me UMD a scroll as a free action on a succesful hit, that with Wraith Strike gets me through the BBEG AC pretty well but I fear that soon enough I won't be able to get even that first hit off.

Heres what i have so far, what I can remember anyway.

Str 12
Dex 28
Con 14
Int 16
Wis 9
Char 16
I have Two-Weapon Fighting, Imp TWF, Craven (DM let me ignore the alignment req), Savvy Rogue, Weapon Focus
Special Abilities are Skill Mastery and Crippling Strike.
I have a metric ton of scrolls and wands in my Haversack, Celestial Armor a Pheonix Cloak for permanent flight, a Ring of Chameleon Power and some other stuff that I can't quite recall. Both my weapons are +3 with various other powers.

We pretty much have every published book available in print format, the Spirit Shaman is a gaming librarian or something and buys everything the day it comes out.

Shishnarfne
2008-02-07, 05:21 PM
It looks like you're in decent shape...

I'd recommend picking up a way to see invisible foes and maybe a way to hopefully gain a miss chance for people targeting you.

Oh yeah, something to deal with crit-immune foes (UMD might be that method for you) probably won't hurt. (Ask your friend with the back problems from carrying that many books:smalltongue: He might have a few ideas.)

I'll defer on PrC judgement... I'd say look for something easier to enter than Arcane Trickster... Maybe a short dip in Dervish might help (wait, flanking, maybe not).

My 2 cp... Probably not worth as much as someone else's, so I advise you to listen to them more than me (they might have beaten me here, too...).

thubby
2008-02-07, 05:30 PM
assassin, some magic, lots of stealthy death stuff, and no SA loss.
shadowdancer works well with the shadow companion (you'll always have flanking), and you can hide in plain sight/SA if you have no flanking companion. unfortunately you lose all SA advances.

playswithfire
2008-02-07, 05:33 PM
Depending on what your weapons are, you might consider a dip into swordsage. If you've got dagger,s you can pick up Shadow Blade (dex to damage with some weapons) and either Child of Shadows (concealment while moving) or Island of blades (if you and ally are adjacent to something, you're flanking it) stance at 15 as well as 6 4th level or lower maneuvers. Stay for one more level and you can grab dancing mongoose (swift action boost to get an extra attack with each weapon) and assassin's stance (ups your sneak attack by 2d6, offsetting the levels spent here)

This assumes you have Tome of Battle
and I just like swordsages. No prestige classes readily come to mind.

Proven_Paradox
2008-02-07, 07:35 PM
Swordsage and rogue work together really, really well, and would be a solid choice. Maneuver prereqs are going to keep you from getting nothing but 4th level maneuvers, but you could probably end up with a few. That low wisdom is a shame, and means swordsage won't do you as much good, but it's still a worthwhile option.

Are you wanting more sneak attack damage? More skill focus? Perhaps some spellcasting to augment your abilities? More straightforward combat ability?

There are several different and completely valid ways to go with this. What do you want to do?

Telonius
2008-02-08, 09:20 AM
Your AC should already be pretty high thanks to your 28 Dex. I'd suggest investing in some miss-chance items - blink, blur, things like that.

For the rest ... one level in Exemplar (PrC in Complete Adventurer) or three in Factotum (base class in Dungeonscape) will do wonders for your skills. Within the Rogue class itself, Skill Mastery will help.

CrowSpawn
2008-02-08, 09:29 AM
The Nightsong Enforcer from the Complete Adventurer is perhaps one of the best fighter/rogue type Prestige Classes I've ever seen. The sneak attack slows down a bit, but the attack rating is solid, and the teamwork benefits are sweet.

If I might add, 'vexing flanker' and 'adaptable flanker' makes you a God among men.

I speak from my experiences with the class. Fun stuff.

its_all_ogre
2008-02-08, 09:59 AM
displacement item gives you a 50% miss chance, its costly at 49000 or so gp, but well worth it.
dunno if your using WBL so may not be so useful...?

Curmudgeon
2008-02-08, 08:13 PM
Heres what i have so far, what I can remember anyway.

Str 12
Dex 28
Con 14
Int 16
Wis 9
Char 16

I have Two-Weapon Fighting, Imp TWF, Craven (DM let me ignore the alignment req) Huh? There's no alignment requirement for Craven. Yes, that chapter in Champions of Ruin is titled "Tools of Evil", but only some of the feats there require an evil alignment, and Craven isn't one of them.

, Savvy Rogue, Weapon FocusWhere's your Weapon Finesse feat? You can't hit enough with only a +1 STR modifier, but you would do much better with a +9 DEX modifier. This is a major screwup.

You've made a few fundamental errors for a Rogue. See if the DM will let you retrain Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and Weapon Focus (a very weak feat) into Weapon Finesse and Telling Blow, and replace a +3 various weapon with a +more keen rapier. Also, since you seem most concerned with combat, I recommend the Penetrating Strike alternative class feature (Dungeonscape page 13), which will let you do half sneak attack damage to those normally SA-immune when you flank them.


Special Abilities are Skill Mastery and Crippling Strike.
I have a metric ton of scrolls and wands in my Haversack, Celestial Armor a Pheonix Cloak for permanent flight, a Ring of Chameleon Power and some other stuff that I can't quite recall. Both my weapons are +3 with various other powers. You should almost never buy any other weapon boosts until you get your weapons up to +5. A Rogue's damage mostly comes from sneak attack. The First Rule of Sneak Attack is:


If you don't hit, your sneak attack damage is zero.

Exceptions to this weapon enhancement rule are very few: keen is worthwhile if you use a finessable 18-20 threat weapon (almost always a rapier) and have Telling Blow to provide a new way to qualify for sneak attacks; and you want the Greater Demolition and Greater Truedeath weapon augment crystals from the Magic Item Compendium so you can do full sneak attack damage to constructs and undead.

Concentrate on hitting, and qualifying for sneak attacks. You want to make arrangements to be a flanking partner with some melee type. Your Fighter/Paladin on the mount isn't a great counterpart unless you can move fast enough to keep up, so boost your movement as much as possible; the +30' from Boots of Speed is the bare minimum. I hope you've maxed out your Tumble ranks and applied Skill Mastery, because you'll want to be tumbling at full speed directly through enemies to get into flanking positions. You could replace your Phoenix Cloak with something that lets you move faster, because greater speed is a huge advantage in combat. While flanking is going to be a better bet to qualify for sneak attack than invisibility, you should definitely have a wand of Greater Invisibility. It's much better to have the Sorcerer use it on you to save time, so try to be persuasive on this point.

Your enemies will frequently be able to see you when you're invisible, and this problem will only get worse at higher levels. The best antidote to this is to use mundane Hide rather than invisibility. One level of Shadowdancer for the Supernatural Hide in Plain Sight will let you make full attacks and Hide with each swing. Shadowdancer is expensive to qualify for, though. If you can boost your base speed then Expeditious Dodge is a better choice than Dodge. Mobility can be bought as an armor enhancement, and you can add it to Bracers of Armor; you'll want to dump your Celestial Armor since it reduces your DEX bonus and the ACP screws up skills like Tumble.

Because of poor party cooperation your best opportunity to sneak attack is going to come at the start of every encounter when enemies are flat-footed. You want to have a missile weapon with a decent range in hand that you can use immediately, so that you don't waste this opportunity moving instead of making sneak attacks. Your high DEX is helpful to have a chance of getting a full round of missile attacks in when the enemies are flat-footed, but if they've got Improved Initiative it's not guaranteed. See about improving your initative check. Improved Initiative is the obvious feat choice but because feats are precious to Rogues you should look elsewhere first: add a Belt of Battle (MIC) for +2, a wand of Sign (with Extend Spell and some decent caster level to get a long duration) for +5, and a luckstone and a Pale green Ioun Stone for +1 each.