Rogues: The Class Left Behind

[Seven Sons of Sin]

It gets access to the most skills, and the most skill points, and the beloved Sneak Attack, but it lacks core mechanical cookies that other classes have been recipient of. The abundance of undead spawns at all levels can make rogues a difficult life. The niche open look/disable trap isn't niche enough for rogues. Epic Dodge isn't even rogue-specific.

I thought this might be a good class to think of some ideas on how to make the rogue more fun. I don't really what new kinds of systems that would make rogues fun (like choosing "paths" to develop stealth skills, social skills, or engineering skills, etc.), but I do have some ideas on how to improve QoL. My few ideas are largely taken from Pathfinder - but even they took awhile to get rogues right.

- Free Weapon Finesse: Somewhere in the first 5 levels.
- Free Weapon Tactics Feats: Allow rogues to choose either Disarm, Knockdown, Power Attack (if they might the prerequisities), or Expertise (if they meet the prerequisities), or Cleave (if they have Power Attack), or Toughness. Grant it somewhere between levels 7-13. This can resemble the "Rogue Tricks" found in Pathfinder.
- Overcome Immunities: At level 13, undead, dragons, and other sneak-immune creatures are no longer immune to your Rogue Sneak Attacks.
- Better Flanking: Somewhere between level 10-20, the flanking bonus for rogues increases from +2 to +4. This does not apply to targets knocked down.

Some other ideas,
- Rogue Chests: At level 10, rogues can now see rogue-only chests hidden in dungeons around the server. Some could be in plain sight.
- Parkour: Rogues can toggle a mode that allows them to move +20% faster in cities, and dungeons.
-Rouge's Chest: Once per day, a rogue can use an spell-like ability to randomly spawn an Acid Flash, Alchemist Fire, Caltrops, or Thieves Tool into their inventory. This can be used 2x/day at a higher level.
- "One Time Use? Yeah Right.": At X level, whenever a rogue uses a scroll, potion, or other 1/use item, there is a 25% the item is not removed from a rogue's inventory.
- "Look, Harry! I'm a Wizard!": 10 level rogues have a 10% chance to not use a charge from a wand or magical item. 20 level rogues have a 20% chance.

Post your ideas!

[Dorkas]

I think a lot of these are interesting ideas, some which have been brought up in the past such as overcoming undead sneak immunities etc. But if you are going to talk about rogues being left behind well... I am triggered that you entirely left out the assassin class which is god awful in comparison.

Dont get me wrong rogues need love too, but they have a lot more usefulness, in terms of skill points, availability, and some very nice bonus feats. I would like to see assassins be made not the absolute worst class choice in the game, before rogues get a buff. But hey, maybe one is in the works, who knows.

[One Two Three Five]

I've been posting (probably bad) rogue buff ideas for a decade so, good luck here. Nothing much to add but: Try looking into Pathfinder (specifically the Unchained Rogue) and 5th edition. Good veins there.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

I think a lot of these are interesting ideas, some which have been brought up in the past such as overcoming undead sneak immunities etc. But if you are going to talk about rogues being left behind well... I am triggered that you entirely left out the assassin class which is god awful in comparison.

Dont get me wrong rogues need love too, but they have a lot more usefulness, in terms of skill points, availability, and some very nice bonus feats. I would like to see assassins be made not the absolute worst class choice in the game, before rogues get a buff. But hey, maybe one is in the works, who knows.

I think a lot of mechanical cookies for rogues can be shared with assassins! There should be definite overlap there.

[BegoneThoth]

One of the ways the team likes to buff classes in the late game is by putting in feat-givers once specific requirements are met.

In that vein I thought it would be cool if there was a rogue NPC that, if you had 20 rogue, gave you a free rogue epic feat at 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 29, and 30 (two at 30).

The rogue epic feat would just be things off their feat list, except for great dex >1, improved sneak attack, and epic dodge (which you need to take on a normal rogue level and meet the normal requirements for).

This means someone with heavy rogue would just be getting a ton of epic feats, which due to how rogue epic feats work, would very quickly basically mean a ton epic skill feats once the 'good' rogue stuff like crippling strike and ED is taken. You get more if you go pure rogue and want to be the absolute skill madman.

I think this really fits the class.

[Cerk Evermoore]

I'd just like to see player quarters being accessible again to lock picks who are not trickery based clerics. Spent all this time making a character specialized in open lock and comes out that isn't even a viable class path anymore given the fact you can't even open a top DC player house.

[flower]

All boons should be extended beyond level 10th.

Also the thief cant should be accesible only to character with very many levels or majority of them in rouge (and if this get changed, do remove this from existing characters). Also set DC for lore on cant so high it cannot be reached without knowing it.

[Hunter548]

All boons should be extended beyond level 10th.

Also the thief cant should be accesible only to character with very many levels or majority of them in rouge (and if this get changed, do remove this from existing characters). Also set DC for lore on cant so high it cannot be reached without knowing it.

Cant would still be worthless for conversation if this happened, you realize that right?

Just make up your own cant.

[Sab1]

One thing is it wouldn't make sense to remove undead being immune to sneaks, since they really have no organs or anything for you to shank.

[Nitro]

One thing is it wouldn't make sense to remove undead being immune to sneaks, since they really have no organs or anything for you to shank.

That's pretty silly when you think about it though. It's still gonna be easier to cut the tendons holding a skeleton together than try to saw through bones Or shoving a spike through the spine to knock off the head, or a cleverly aimed blow to knock out a knee and so on. Just because they don't have the same weak-points a living creature does, doesn't mean they're devoid of them.

[The GrumpyCat]

I just want to make an interesting observation.

Other classes, to balence them/make them more useful, tend to get tweaked in and of themselves.
It seems to me (and I may be wrong here) that most of the time, when devs want to make the rogue class more 'useful' they change the environment. (traps, locks, spot checks, ect.)

Again - this isn't really appropos anything, it's just an interesting observation to mull over.

[flower]

The issue to begin with, is that nwn designed rogues as utility class for multiclassing.

[Tourmaline]

I liked the bounty hunter sub-class in Baldurs Gate. I'd like to see something like that, an expert trapper with a custom trap system of some kind that could disable enemies and possibly even get XP for a kill. Don't ask me how to pull it off of course..

[Durvayas]

I don't think any rogue buffs should take effect before lvl 15 rogue or later, otherwise anything added will be a direct buff to dex WMs, which are already fairly potent.

Thieves cant needs to be pushed back to lvl 5 so that its useful again. Its utterly worthless when every build with a dip, especially paladins, understands it.

Assassin needs more help than rogue. Soooo much more help. It is in every respect an inferior class.

[Xuuldar]

I'd just like to see player quarters being accessible again to lock picks who are not trickery based clerics.

My only issue with this is, unless there is a system built and put in place for a character to investigate and possibly identify the thief, this adds nothing to RP and just becomes stealing just to steal.

The issue to begin with, is that nwn designed rogues as utility class for multiclassing.

The boons the rogue gets that should be what balance them are rendered mute by the fact that skill points can be stored up and dumped with a dip. UMD and to a degree pick lock and disable trap along with extra skillpoints are what would normally give rogues something to make them desirable but since everyone on the server can have these same boons with a 3 level dip, their isn't much point in making an actual rogue. If the system was changed to force all skill points be used on level up it would bring rogues back into balance but that is never going to happen because it would invalidate 90% of the characters on the server. So I think the OPs list would go a pretty long way to bringing them in line. I also like the idea of extra feats in the epics, maybe not quite as many as was mentioned, but a couple extra feats along with a few tweaks like the OP posted would bring them in line and would further the rogue theme. In addition to some of the offensive tweaks, giving them a scaling AC boost tied to dual wielding or dex would be nice too.

I have been waiting for the day rogues get some love. I would love to make one but every time I work one up I just can't really talk myself into more than a minor dip.

[susitsu]

Rogues are still better than druids, tbh.

[Nitro]

Rogues are still better than druids, tbh.

Have you been seeing the same elemental shape cookies that I have? Because those are pretty beef compared to rogues of a similar investment.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

Rogues are still better than druids, tbh.

Have you been seeing the same elemental shape cookies that I have? Because those are pretty beef compared to rogues of a similar investment.

There's also been the changes to Transmutation focuses (which Druids were always tempted by, because of Drown), as well as the slew of spell changes that made the spellbook fresh.

Besides monks, I think rogues are the only core class that has not received any degree of new systems, mechanics, tweaks, buffs, or etc.

It's equal part "buff rogues", and equal part "give them something to make them fresh."

[Freyason]

I think that was sarcasm

[Hunter548]

Besides monks, I think rogues are the only core class that has not received any degree of new systems, mechanics, tweaks, buffs, or etc."

Clerics too. Discounting most of the spell focuse changes since clerics get hugely less mileage out of them than wizards/sorcerers.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

Besides monks, I think rogues are the only core class that has not received any degree of new systems, mechanics, tweaks, buffs, or etc."

Clerics too. Discounting most of the spell focuse changes since clerics get hugely less mileage out of them than wizards/sorcerers.

Huh, I thought GSFs were restricted to wizards/sorcerers?

I could go on about wanting to reform the domain system to be more organic (by that, we totally scrap it and put something else in), which I think clerics desperately need, but that's a separate topic!

[Hunter548]

Besides monks, I think rogues are the only core class that has not received any degree of new systems, mechanics, tweaks, buffs, or etc."

Clerics too. Discounting most of the spell focuse changes since clerics get hugely less mileage out of them than wizards/sorcerers.

Huh, I thought GSFs were restricted to wizards/sorcerers?

I could go on about wanting to reform the domain system to be more organic (by that, we totally scrap it and put something else in), which I think clerics desperately need, but that's a separate topic!

The infinite spells are. Things like -scry and the like aren't.

But, again, different topic.

[susitsu]

Hunter is referring to epic spell focus bonuses.

And no, there is absolutely no sarcasm.

Rogues are literally still better than druids.

[One Two Three Five]

its time to stop posting

Anyway: Subclasses, feat changes/additions, and spell changes seem to be the usual way to juice various and myriad classes.

Spell changes: rogues dont get spells

Feat Changes/additions: Eh. Most Non-3E versions of rogues get rogue talents these days. Again, UX rogues might be a good thing to check.

Subclasses: if this was going to happen..

Out of those, I'd say a rogue trainer that lets you learn a rogue talent per, eh, 5 rogue levels. What the talents would be is beyond me. Give assassins some special ones + have their spells use character level if the assassin has 10 or more levels in the class.

[yellowcateyes]

Rogues are literally still better than druids.

I actually think pure druids are pretty strong right now.

That aside, rogues do need work. Sadly, much of what we want to do with them is made impossible by hardcoded features - sneak attacks, flanking, sneak/crit immunity, etc. Hopefully EE/Haks open these up for modification in the future.

Still, brainstorming is welcome. There are things we can offer rogues in the meantime.

Like, say, nerfing Truesight.