| Name | Rogue Build Guide |
| Category | Class |
With Evil Resurgent going live and new content ready by January 2007, it's probably the best time to roll a Rogue. Quests are getting tougher and there are significant amount of traps to disable, hidden doors to spot, and locked doors to open. If you've been playing DDO for quite some time now, you'd realize the increased dependency on Rogues to disable nasty traps in certain quests. Back in the early days of DDO, players (characters other than Rogue) just buff themselves to ward off the effects of fire and electricity traps. But some of them realized that just inviting a Rogue to a party would certainly save on spell points, not to mention platinum pieces and gold pieces for scrolls and wands.
It's quite the general perception that a Rogue is useful to a group because of his skills in picking locks and disabling traps. He's not someone you'd use as one of the frontline damage dealers but you can always rely on him to do stealth attacks to defeat monsters. Given that your Rogue's usefulness in the group would tend to be on the above-mentioned skills, it's probably appropriate to create a Rogue who can maximize those skills and abilities. Of course, if you get bored with just picking locks and disarming traps, you can always move on and start taking some Fighter levels.
If we are to go by the general perception of Rogues, then you're probably better off rolling one that's highly effective in spotting hidden doors, opening them, and disabling traps. Other abilities would become secondary. As such, you'd have to invest on abilities, skills, and feats that make you the Rogue that most of PUGs today reserve one slot for.
ABILITIES
Assuming that the 1750 favor is met (Drow unlocked), you'd have 32 points to spend on abilities. Keeping in mind all the above mentioned discussion, the main ability you'll want to spend points on for your Rogue would be Dexterity (DEX). The higher your DEX, the better you are in the following: Balance, Hide, Move Silently, Open Lock and Tumble Skills. Maxing it to 18 is the usual route. You have the option to increase it by +3 (total of 21 upon reaching level cap) on Levels 4, 8, and 12. The next important ability would be Intelligence (INT). This will boost both Disable Device and Search skills. Wisdom (WIS), on the other hand, would be important for your Spot skills. It's quite obvious that INT would be given more weight than WIS, so adjust the score accordingly. The remaining points would then go into other abilities (Strength, Constitution, Charisma) just so your Rogue wouldn't have penalties to saves and skill checks. Also make some adjustments in case the 1750 favor is not met, hence removing the 4 extra points in your starting Ability scores.
SKILLS
Invest points on the following skills (arranged in order of importance): Disable Device, Open Lock, Move Silently, Search, Spot. The rest of the skills aren’t as important and points assigned to them would depend on the need for them as you progress in the game. That means you can invest in UMD in case you want to multi-class and see the need to use wands and scrolls.
ENHANCEMENTS
To further boost your Rogue's skills, get the following Enhancements:
1. Skill Ingenuity (up to +8 to Open Lock and Disable Device skills upon reaching Level 11)
2. Improved Trap Sense (up to + 4 bonus on saving throws against traps upon reaching Level 10)
3. Skill Stealth (up to +8 bonus to Hide and Move Silently skills when you reach Level 11). This would come in play when you need to do Stealth Attacks to deal some damage on monsters.
4. Skill Perception (up to +8 bonus to Search and Spot skills when you reach Level 11).
These enhancements will definitely boost your Open Lock, Disable Device, as well as Search and Spot skills. There has been some discussions on the usefulness of two other enhancements that are quite tempting to take: Rogue's Action Boost and Faster Sneaking.
Rogue's Action Boost grants the ability to receive short-term boosts to skills, weapon damage, or attack speed. While this would be a must for Rogue builds that are more focused on combat, the said enhancement would do little to boost Spot skill. Faster Sneaking, on the other hand, grants up to 54% increase in movement while sneaking. This would just be secondary as it would be of little help to the primary skills you want to establish for your Rogue.
FEATS
Nimble Fingers (+2 bonus on DD and Open Lock checks)
Skill Focus: Disable Device (+3 bonus to all skill checks or DD)
Skill Focus: Open Lock (+3 bonus to all skill checks for Open Lock)
Skill Focus: Search (+3 bonus to all skill checks for Search)
These should ensure that no traps are undetected and no locked doors are unopened. A variation would be to take the Alertness feat (+2 bonus on Listen and Spot Checks) or Skill Focus: Spot (+3 bonus to all skill checks for Spot) in place of other SF: search.
ITEMS/REWARDS/TOOLS
Keep your eye out for items that will boost your Search, Spot, Disable Device, or Open Lock skills. Veteran Rogues attest to the usefulness of Kundarak Delving Goggles (+10 Spot, +10 Disable Device) and Kundarak Delving Suit (+5 Chain Shirt, Silent Moves, Search +5). Both are unique items found in Plane of Night. Also, Tempest Spine has the Goggles of Perception (+5 Spot, +5 Search), and Xorian Cipher has the Sign of Xoriat (+7 Spot).
Also, you'll have to grind to get some of the rewards available when you complete quests on Cult of Six, South Threnal, and Delera's Tomb. They are Goggles, Belts, Trinkets and Gloves that grants bonuses (+5 and +7) to Disable Device, Spot, Listen, and Search.
Some examples:
Rabbit Gloves (+1 to all skills)
Theurgic Stave (+5 Spot)
Skeleton Key (+7 Open Lock)
Mummified Bat (+5 Listen, +5 Spot)
Thieves Tools grants between +3, +4, +5, +6 to Open and Disable (from +1, +2, +3, +4 Thieves' Tools, respectively). Of course the +4 Thieves' Tools is the most sought after, but you'll have to have 150 favor to unlock it (by completing quests on Elite: Baudry Cartomon, Smuggler's Warehouse, Stealthy Repossession, Durk's Got A Secret, Walk the Butcher's Path, The Swiped Signet, Redfang the Unruled, The Fire Caves, Guard Duty, Scoundrel's Run, Garl's Tomb).
BUFFS
If you are grouped with a Bard, it's a great way to add bonus to your primary Rogue skills. If you just say "please", the Bard can buff you with Inspire Competence (+2 all skills), or Good Hope (+2), or Greater Heroism (+4)
DC of DISABLE DEVICE, OPEN LOCKS, SEARCH, SPOT
Now this is the part when you need to do the math. Add up all bonuses you got from items, buffs, enhancements, etc, and you'd end up with a number to counter the DC of Disable Devices, Open Locks, Search, or Spot on high level quests. If it's a high enough number, then you have a higher chance of disabling traps, unlocking doors, or simply spotting doors. Just make sure you add those that stack up.
The general belief is that the DC of traps in quests done on Elite is 45. This is particularly true in the quest Hiding in Plain Sight. If this is an indicator of the difficulty checks (on DD) on new quests, then your Rogue should at least have 45 to disable traps. This is not a problem if you are lucky enough to get all those cool items that boost your Rogue skills.
Keep all these in mind so your Rogue will remain one of the most in-demand characters in the game.
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