How can you actually play a rogue?

[probo]

Hi, I understand if this topic seems annoying or haphazard, because it propably is, because im just a lousy whiner, I know. But last night I wanted to make an evil assassin rogue character and I made him a moonelf, going the usual rogueskills.(12,19,12,14,9,10 stats if anyone is interested)

So, I can open doors and disable traps and the whole rogue-shebang, but what I was really looking forward to was to employ some genius-level sneak strategies that would almost decapitate my foes instantly when I popped up behind them with shortsword ready!

But it seems that I cannot be hidden when my party is in the vicinity because they are visible! And the worst thing is that I want to play/control my own character, is that so much to ask? I look upon my fellow party members as "other" characters and I just really want to control only my main character! But if im the one who runs up to the enemy i'll draw all the "aggro" and then not only cant I backstab anyone but I will also get heavily damaged, which isnt optimal seeing as how khelgar has twice my hp and a shield!

Not to mention all the undead enemies and the ones with dmg resistances that makes me do 1 damage per strike!

So the whole situation just feels so damn ineffective! Now I know its not exactly impossible to continue the game or anything like that but I cant help getting hung up on how much easier it would have been if I had just played an halforc fighter or something with extreme strength!

Anyone else that felt the same way about their rogue?

One of the things I might enjoy with the rogue would be his ability to actually read scrolls, if I could get a wizard in my party maybe he could massproduce scrolls for my main char, but I really dont know much about that, or if it would be effective.

[smass]

I play a rogue or ranger/rogue all the time. As far as sneak tactics go - the best advice is to use the "broadcast command" function to instruct your party to "hold their ground". The party will then stay where you leave them. Your rogue can then sneak around at will and summon the party back to him with the "follow me" and "attack nearest" commands.

One of my favorite tactics is to sneak behind enemies, then summon my party, then attack the enemies from behind while the main party starts slicing them up. This works particularly well when my rogue can carve up archers and/or spellcasters while the rest of the party takes on the melee baddies.

Rogues rock!!

[Magrus]

If you sneak around an enemy and hit them from behind when they are fighting one of your companions, you can do sneak attack damage to them as well. Just keep your Tumble skill maxed out or get the Dodge, Mobility and Spring Attack feats if you go for a multi-class rogue build.

Scrolls are easy, but the designers truly screwed up the magic item crafting costs in gold royally in this game. It's not worth the trouble or effort unless you use the console to drop gold on your character. As far as creating scrolls, you need a lot of gold, and you need to purchase empty scrolls to scribe them on. Then just cast a spell and target it on the scroll.

[der Moench]

AFAIK, you don't even have to "sneak" up on enemies to get the sneak attack (AKA backstab) damage. You can either sneak up on them; or, you can attack them from behind while they are engaged in combat. (Magrus said this, but again said "sneak around," so I thought I'd clarify if you weren't sure.) So, you can be visible, not hiding in shadows, etc - just position yourself correctly.

I'm playing a rogue right now, and it's OK. You're right that against undead you will be weaker. And, of course, a half-orc barbarian or fighter will definitely be stronger in many respects. You have to want a thief for more than just really great damage/fighting.

Peace.

[Magrus]

Thanks for that, I worded it wrongly. I meant just to get around behind them. EVASIVE MANEUVERS! :laugh:

[Who Cares]

There are no genius level sneak strategies in combat in NWN2. You just push the fighter into the enemy, tumble past and hit the target from behind then run around in circles if you didn't kill the target until the fighter taunts the target enough that the target focusses on the fighter again.
That half orc fighter probably has more problems then your thief to get through Damage Reduction seeing that most of the mobs that have DR are not immune to sneak attack. The main exception being constructs.

The ability to use scrolls (also other items) is achieved through the Use Magic Device skill.
Like already mentioned they increased the costs of crafting items. They doubled what items cost to create normally, this most likely to compensate for the fact that it doesn't cost any XP, normally 1 per 12.5GP of costs, nor expensive components, for example stoneskin and the 250GP in powdered diamond each casting would cost in pen and paper game.

And I disagree with our resident monk about playing a thief not being all about damage. A dual wielding hasted thief can deal staggering amounts of of damage, provided the target is vulnerable to sneak attack. The biggest problem being staying alive when someone disagrees with you poking a feet of metal through a kidney.

[Acleacius]

Wands as well as Scrolls are insanly price as Magrus mentioned.
Iir its can be like a $1000 gold a wand shot depending on how many charges you get, which is random.
You might try looking for a Slashing melee as well as Percing or even if possible enchant your Percing weapon with Elemental damage like Fire or Lightning for the Undead.
Now that would get their attention.

[probo]

Thanks for replies, I fail to see how my halforc warrior would ever have as much problems as my rogue during a fight though The dmg resistance is easily toppled by just simply doing great dmg from great strength, also, it would seem to me that you can only sneak attack an enemy once! Am I right about only getting one sneak attack?

Also my orc would go weaponmaster later so I doubt he would have less crits^^

[Acleacius]

Well if you just wanted the Rogue Feats on your FIghter thats definalty possible.
I guess you could sorta create your own Rogue hybrid?

You could trade out a couple of Feats for Sneak Attack and/or Trapfinding on your Fighter and in fact with the Trapfinding feat you could completly do away with the need to have a Rouge, since it and Sneak Attack are the 2 Feats that make a Rogue a Rogue, iiir correctly.
Not sure if your Hide skills would be reduced as a base Fighter, maybe with the Ranger hybrid someone mentioned earlier?

[zamiel]

Thanks for replies, I fail to see how my halforc warrior would ever have as much problems as my rogue during a fight though The dmg resistance is easily toppled by just simply doing great dmg from great strength, also, it would seem to me that you can only sneak attack an enemy once! Am I right about only getting one sneak attack?

Also my orc would go weaponmaster later so I doubt he would have less crits^^

The game divides your no. of attacks to 3 parts every round. At 4 attacks you attack 2/1/1 times, and at 7 3/2/2. You get sneak attack bonus only for the attacks in the first part. So going dual surely worths it. Maybe you should have a strength based rogue (with str 20 as a wood elf and less dex), and have 6 or 11 levels (the latter recommended) as a ranger. Also you can dual-wield kukris if you are longing for the crits, but since sneak attack does not multiply on a succesful crit, and your main damage output is from it, it does not really matter.
Also you can have knockdown and imp. knockdown. It only costs your first attack, and if effective, your enemy will roll on the floor and you can sneak attack him as much as you like.

[probo]

I guess all the things you write makes sense, but I guess I just cannot look past the fact that rogues are bad at fighting in comparison to fighters, you might be thinking that that sounds stupid but if you look at other games such as WoW or whatever - then the classes are balanced for combat. I would like this to also be balanced for combat, but then again I guess it really cant be since the rogues have all these neat little abilities that help the team outside of combat.

Too bad then that ive never encountered a trap deadly enough to actually kill my whole team at the same time (and anything less than death for the whole team is nothing to worry about), and you dont really need search, disable device or lockpicking or stealth or anything really.

The nature of the game is just a long-ass monstergrind from point a to b so I failt to see how the rogue fits in as a less abled fighter. Theres even a ring you can get fairly quickly in the game that lets you cast knock once per day, and then the usefulness of a rogue drops to zero compared to either a fighter, wizard or perhaps cleric.

I guess im looking at it the wrong way but imo theres 2 different strenghts a character can have, and that is either being good at killing or being good at killing FASTER! that may sound ridiculous but since you propably kill about 59 million monsters in this game and it can get tedious I think faster killing is worth alot, and faster is what you get when you dont need to rest or prepare spells as a fighter, and potent killing is what you get with a fully buffed wizard.

Healing comes in massbottles and you can stack up on those fairly easily and as a mage you dont even need bottles because of all the defensive skills, and the fact that you can rest so easily without interruptions makes healing characters slightly less usefull :/

And rogues, well rogues are generally only there for roleplayers I suppose, and for people who dont powergame, I guess that would only be roleplayers, Im sorry I dont roleplay that much, I just wanna kick ass fast:/

But then again its like I said in the beginning, its not even like its hard or something, its just less effective and im a little bit of a perfectionist or whatever when it comes to this and I cannot let it go...

[probo]

Ive also been thinking about what you said about the dualwieldist getting one extra sneakhit, and yeah I got 2 offhand at lvl9 so I noticed that aswell, I really dont think this makes up for the lack of dmg though.

I personally really dislike having to rely on backstabs to do heavy damage and if my brain isnt totally malfunctioning it most certainly looks like khelgar easily outdamages me even when I do get backstabs! (not on those 2 hits alone but if you draw out the comparison to determine who damages an enemy from full hp to death the fastest.)

I was actually under the impression that you would get continuous sneakattack bonus on every hit you made aslong as you were behind the target before I made my rogue and I was still contemplating its usefulness! at lvl 20 you would have about 10d6, an average of 35 extra damage per attack, I actually thought that was quite balanced because they are so damn weak in other ways

I mean look at it, 4 less hp per level, much less BaB so you have a much harder time to hit and you hit slower than a fighter too, you generally never take more than 12 or 14 str (more is a waste) so you will have much lower damage, you also use weapons that already have low damage to use weapon finesse.

Fighters on the other hand gets armor that makes up for the lack of dexterity easily by giving you similar or better armorclass and thus the fighter has much more attributepoints to spend on strength, and everything about the fighter just seems to work in an awesome conjunction to make him a bastion of defense and destruction!

The monk slightly resembles the rogue in that I think they should also become VERY dexterious, but unlike the rogue the monk is chuck norris in lategame combat? And I dislike the whole MONK-deal too with the game, its ofcourse more balanced combatwise than the rogue but having to "pay your dues" by having a crap character in the start to become strong in lategame really pisses me off, why cant they just make it so that they are balanced throughout

I can rant alot sometimes but I usually just dont, I guess to spare people but more so to spare myself from slight embarrasment but right now ive got nothing better to do so... This all becomes alot of text to read and anyone actually reading all of this should be awarded with several cookies!

[zamiel]

Probo, in lots of things you are terribly right. However, a rouge is for the thing you want a character: killing things faster. I soloed the game with a fighter/sorc/rdd. I think this build is the most I can get out of a fighter in terms of damage dealing. Damage was 5*4d6+29, so around 215/round. (hp a lot, ac around 41, str 40)
However, with a ranger/rouge you can damage around (first two attacks are a knockdown) 6*3d6+17+6*5d6 sneak attack, around 294/round.
Hp did not matter at all, he killed everything so fast, that only those were a threat that were immune to sneak attacks. (much less hp, ac around 37, str 34)
And probably the main reason I liked this build is the umd skill. It helped a lot to compete with the ac/attack bonus of a fighter. I never bothered raising disable device, forging or umd is better.

[Ningengirai]

*wants several cookies*

Joking.

I tried playing a Rogue in the game, and either I did everything wrong, or every other character has mad skills when it comes to seeing my Rogue even when they're standing around the corner two corridors down. It wasn't even a matter of my party giving me away.

What I found crazy was that in one part of the game, I had Neeshka cast her fiendish spell Darkness right in the middle of a group of thugs. Result? My party ended up completely blind, but the thugs could see just fine. There were nothing but 'Sneak Attack!' messages above that cloud of darkness and my party was dead within seconds. I find the game somewhat unbalanced when it comes to characters who aren't pure fighters but carry weapons nevertheless. Those thugs in the Docks, especially... how can they get Sneak Attacks if they're standing right in front of me in the middle of the street in broad daylight and I'd have to be blind not to see them?

[Acleacius]

Hey I get cookies, too!

Well I think your right and its mostly about poor designs and balance.

On the other hand D&D rules are guidlines that are broken/expanded/changed a milion times a day(yes I am exaggerating).
It seems almost impossible to play exactly by the rules, just because differnet people have different taste and entertainment levels.

Just consider yourself the DM, you are teh Master, so play it how you like it!
This game was rushed out, not even sure you could call it finished but it is playable.

There is way to little effective dialogue, no real sneaking, too much hack and slash and why oh why would Obsidian create a great influence system in KotOR2 then go backwards and have no effect on your NPCs in NWN2?
Is that realistic, hell no they should have continued to define the system sine it was one of the most inovative successful ideas in awhile.

Do you just feel to compeled by the rules to make your own hybrid, even if its something you like in WoW?

[Who Cares]

@Acleacius
Like I said they doubled the cost in gold of making magic items. Wands are even worse because you pay the creation cost for a 50 charge wand while the max number of charges (for me after a bit of testing) seems to be 10 + caster level.
Even better if you make a fireball wand as 10th level mage you pay the costs for a wand that produces a 10D6 fireball but if you would be crazy enough to sell the thing to the shop you get a price based on the minimum level of the spell in it (5th in the case of that fireball wand), the number of charges remaining and further reduced by the cut that the merchant takes.

@Zamiel
Doing 6 or 11 levels ranger just to get those extra attacks so you can boost the rogue is a bit iffy for me. It's more that after 11 levels ranger it is interesting to switch to rogue to boost your damage by doing sneak attacks.
The reason for me saying this is that the discrepancy in sneak attack damage between the ranger/rogue and pure rogue is 5D6, which means that at 20th level the ranger/rogue needs to hit with 4 attacks doing sneak attack damage to equal the sneak attack damage a 20th level rogue can do in two and this is in favour of the rogue if you count on those extra dual wield attacks to compensate.

@Probo
I'll probably be a bit blunt about this but you don't need to justify why you don't want to play a rogue to us if you don't like one. Especially not if you keep claiming things that are just not true. Just don't play the rogue.
You can powergame fairly well with a rogue. It just requires more attention to group members (having a fighter with taunt, a wizard with a spell selection aimed at boosting the rogue)

For example your claim that you can outdamage a rogue with a half orc fighter.
Lets start of with a str 20 half orc, add 16 levels and a +6 str belt. strength is 30 now for a nice +10 to damage/hit. Nice enough that I for my rogue I take the same setup. The difference in number of attacks is 1 and a +4 to hit in favour of the fighter. Seeing the to hit on the last attack the fighter will only get 3 attacks and the rogue only the first sneak attack. Hand a falchion +5 to the fighter (either keen or improved crit feat). Means that 1 out of those 3 attacks is a crit. The damage is (2d4+15)*4 for an average of 80 points (min 68, max 92).
The rogue is dualwielding two weapons, lets make it a two daggers non magical to give your fighter an edge, no critical, just 2 hits on the sneak attack for a (1d4+10+8d6)*2 for an average of 81 damage (min 39, max 124).
Now your contention that the fighter does more damage through DR. Lets keep the average damage from above and hit a Hezrou (Xazis in game) with it, your fighter ends up doing 50 damage, my rogue ends up doing 61 damage.

You would be better of with a ranger to counter this rogue. At level 16 you have greater two weapon fighting. Switch from the falchion to two rapier+5, you lose 1.5 average damage but gain 3 attacks, lets assume they all hit and one of them is a crit (seeing that those have the same to hit numbers as the 3 attacks that hit above), you end up losing 6 points of the original damage and then doubling that to 148 points of damage on average

Next we optimize the rogue by one step, that means improved two weapon fighting as feat (should have enough stat points to get 20 str/15 dex) and a wizard casting greater invisibility. The rogue now gains two attacks that hit (seeing that the to hit of those two attacks is higher then the 3rd attack of the fighter) and do sneak attack damage effectively doubling the damage done to 162 points on average (note that 20 points can be added on top of this by giving the rogue +5 weapons). The last is contigent on Bioware correctly implementing that having total concealment means the target loses dexterity related bonusses which is a one of the PRs for being able to do a sneak attack.
Who says you can't powergame with a rogue

So where is the ranger better
Constructs - Those have both DR and sneak attack immunity meaning that the extra attacks get more damage in to overcome damage reduction, rogue damage drops like a rock and then ground to paste against the DR. Good thing that there are not that many in the game.
Undeath - sneak attack immunity. Rogue damage drops like a rock.
For just about everything else those two daggers on the rogue resemble an industrial meatgrinder.

[probo]

Wow, nice to see so many people posted in this thread. Ive also learnt about a few strategies here that I must try out, such as greater invisibility and more notably the knockdown effect that, from reading here, seems to make every hit you do a crit.

But to Who Cares who made a lengthy comparison of the rogue and fighter I wonder how would the rogue get (1d4+10+8d6) damage in the first place? does he have 30 strength too?

I must also start to write down my own analysis, but there are many variables that are completely unknown to me unfortunatly, because I havent played through the whole game yet and I dont know if there are more feats, monsters with amazing DR, etc. But I will make my own calculations and propably write it here

Most importantly, I want to know exactly what type of damage that is included in a critical hit. Lets say you have 2d4 damage from the weapon, 10 extra damage from strength, 2 extra damage because its an adamantium weapon, 4 more damage because its a +4 weapon, and 1d6 extra firedamage because its also enchanted with that, furthermore you also have an enchantment on it from a spell such as flame weapon with 1d4+10 extra firedamage. Now which of those damagetypes would be included in a critical? I could propably have searched for it somehow, but if you know ure welcome to answer here thx in advance! (I know backstab isnt included)

[Fljotsdale]

Hi, I understand if this topic seems annoying or haphazard, because it propably is, because im just a lousy whiner, I know. But last night I wanted to make an evil assassin rogue character and I made him a moonelf, going the usual rogueskills.(12,19,12,14,9,10 stats if anyone is interested)

So, I can open doors and disable traps and the whole rogue-shebang, but what I was really looking forward to was to employ some genius-level sneak strategies that would almost decapitate my foes instantly when I popped up behind them with shortsword ready!

But it seems that I cannot be hidden when my party is in the vicinity because they are visible! And the worst thing is that I want to play/control my own character, is that so much to ask? I look upon my fellow party members as "other" characters and I just really want to control only my main character! But if im the one who runs up to the enemy i'll draw all the "aggro" and then not only cant I backstab anyone but I will also get heavily damaged, which isnt optimal seeing as how khelgar has twice my hp and a shield!

Not to mention all the undead enemies and the ones with dmg resistances that makes me do 1 damage per strike!

So the whole situation just feels so damn ineffective! Now I know its not exactly impossible to continue the game or anything like that but I cant help getting hung up on how much easier it would have been if I had just played an halforc fighter or something with extreme strength!

Anyone else that felt the same way about their rogue?

One of the things I might enjoy with the rogue would be his ability to actually read scrolls, if I could get a wizard in my party maybe he could massproduce scrolls for my main char, but I really dont know much about that, or if it would be effective.

One thing that might help is to add points into your team's 'hide' skill when they level up. If they have enough skill points to do so. And then use the C button to place ALL as Stealthy.

But generally, I just go into stealth mode myself and let the enemy attack my team head on, then I come in from behind them to get in Sneak attacks while they are concentrating on my team. A Rogue can do a lot of damage that way, especially as 'hide' and 'sneak attack' improves.

[Magrus]

Most importantly, I want to know exactly what type of damage that is included in a critical hit. Lets say you have 2d4 damage from the weapon, 10 extra damage from strength, 2 extra damage because its an adamantium weapon, 4 more damage because its a +4 weapon, and 1d6 extra firedamage because its also enchanted with that, furthermore you also have an enchantment on it from a spell such as flame weapon with 1d4+10 extra firedamage. Now which of those damagetypes would be included in a critical? I could propably have searched for it somehow, but if you know ure welcome to answer here thx in advance! (I know backstab isnt included)

In that instance, everything but the flaming weapon enchantments would be modified for critical damage I believe. The weapon itself, including the "+X+ for the enchantment on it, the adamantium bonus should as well, the Str Bonus and nothing else.

[Who Cares]

@Probo
Yes I made a thug by taking the fighter stats and just switching classes. Don't expect this rogue to be a catburglar.
What is multiplied, base weapon damage, strength bonus to damage, magic damage bonus, material bonus. Not multiplied are extra damage dice from other effects (so no extra damage dice from magic or sneak attacks)
So in the example you brought neither the fire damage nor the flame weapon damage is to be multiplied.

But if you want a really evil weapon make it cold iron/holy. Most of the enemies are classed as evil so you get that bonus and the cold iron in addition means that you can say "hello demon meet my weapon, weapon ignore DR" while not losing an enchantment spot to a +2 damage.