Complete Noobie Rogue

[Guyven]

Hiya, just reactivated DDO yesterday to hook up with some buddies who have been playing and they were in need of a rogue. Been reading all I could on the boards 90% of which I don't understand heh. I do know we're not huge damage dealers but capable of some. Our role is disarming traps and unlocking doors and I assume thats the reason my friends wanted a rogue in their group.

I hate writing threads like this asking for a good build, but honestly I can't piece together anything that I feel 100% comfortable with from existing threads.

Could someone shoot me a decent build that focus's mainly on traps and doors, but will allow me to at least be somewhat useful when poking at some bad guys back? Or put me in touch with a decent site that would have one. These boards are a lot smaller last I played =/

I'd like to stay a pure rogue (unless its absolutely unnecessary). Anyway thanks in advance.

[sigtrent]

I don't have time to do a full build at the moment but a pure rogue is pretty easy to get started on.

Human and Elf are the most advantageous races. Elf because they get spot and search bonuses, humans because they get an extra feat and extra skill points. Personaly I like the Elf as it has a lot of synergies (racial dex bonus and better enhancement selections).

Stats would be about...
Str 10
Dex 18
Con 10
Int 14
Wis 10
Cha 12

This is very middle of the road and leaves all the doors open for you as you level up. Spot, Search, Disable Device, Open Lock, and UMD are the skills you should level first, but you will have points for Hide, Move Silently and others which arn't vital but might be fun.

I'd recomend Nimble Fingers at first level, it gives you a jump start on locks and traps. Take Weapon Finesse at level 3 and it will really help you your combat skills. (you will need some help leveling a pure rogue, it isn't very good for solo play)

You can change enhancements pretty freely so don't worry much about those, just take the ones that sound like they would be usefull for what you want to do. Rapier is definately the best melee weapon for you. You can use magic light shields without any penalty, so get one of those eventualy.

[Impaqt]

Hiya, just reactivated DDO yesterday to hook up with some buddies who have been playing and they were in need of a rogue. Been reading all I could on the boards 90% of which I don't understand heh. I do know we're not huge damage dealers but capable of some. Our role is disarming traps and unlocking doors and I assume thats the reason my friends wanted a rogue in their group.

I hate writing threads like this asking for a good build, but honestly I can't piece together anything that I feel 100% comfortable with from existing threads.

Could someone shoot me a decent build that focus's mainly on traps and doors, but will allow me to at least be somewhat useful when poking at some bad guys back? Or put me in touch with a decent site that would have one. These boards are a lot smaller last I played =/

I'd like to stay a pure rogue (unless its absolutely unnecessary). Anyway thanks in advance.
SIgs build is decent.. But lets address one thing first and foremost...

THis Line....
I do know we're not huge damage dealers but capable of some. Our role is disarming traps and unlocking doors and I assume thats the reason my friends wanted a rogue in their group.

Is complete utter Hogwash......

Rogues have the single highest unmodified Damage Potential in the game. No Other class gets 4...5...6d6 extra damage for free.....

Unlocking doors/Chests in this game is a breeze... You dont need to max that skill.. Just about any character with 1 level of rogue can throw enough points into Open Lock to ge tthe job done.

Thre are very few... If any... Traps in this game that cannot be bypassed in some way shape or form....

I dont say this stuff to discourage you from building and playing a rogue.... I just want to make sure you now what your getting into.... Playing a "Trapsmith" can be very frustrating when no one cares to wait for you to disarm the traps... Builds like my Deathdealer(And Variants) are extremely effective in DDO. Strong trap skills and huge damage potential....... THey are a lot of fun toplay..

[ArkoHighStar]

The question is what kind of game are you intending to play, will you guys be going slow through all the quests stopping to disarm traps and letting the rogue scout ahead etc. If so a trapsmith is not a bad build, but his usefulness will be limited to those groups that play in this fashion. One of the other posters is correct rogues can really shine as off tanks, doing massive damage from sneak attacks, up to 7d6 with a 13lvl rogue.
Rogues also have the most skill points to play with, and as such can be very versatile, human rogue with 16 int can keep 11 skills maxxed.
As such playing a rogue can also be one of the most challenging classes to play well as so much can be done well and so much can be done poorly.
The one thing to understand is that rgoues despite all the damage they can deliver are not frontline tanks, they can only wear light armor, and whil many rogues can get their AC into the high 40's, hitpoint wise you will always be lower than a tank.

Another things rogue are very useful at is their use of UMD, most can get into the high 20 or low 30's even with a low charisma, this allows you to use wands and scrolls for various purposes.

[Rindalathar]

Listen to Arko and Impaqt here. They know what they're talking about.

I agree that Elves and Drow make the best rogues because the enhancement lines are very attractive and take the pressure off some skill point allocation due to racial enhancements in spot and search.

You know, it's so true. People invite rogues for trapsmithing period. But they can be vicious on the damage. Thing is we're the only ones seeing the red numbers, so many who never play a rogue (especially a high-level rogue) will ever appreciate this point.

With that said, it is a balancing act to make sure you have sufficient skills to get the traps taken care of, but also feel like you're doing something when it comes to fighting. Low-level rogues can be an excruciating trial of patience. Get yourself some +3 spot, search, and DD items early to avoid frustration. Don't sweat Open Lock...it's a dex. based skill, so the mod. almost always covers the check needed.

Also, always remember to dump points in UMD. It won't pay off until a little later, but eventually wands, scrolls, and race-restricted items become your fast friends.

[Guyven]

go go 12 hour work shifts =/.. Sorry for the late reply, but I'm extremely grateful for the replies. Thanks again =)

[Guyven]

Hi again.

A little update for further guidance =)

I went pure rogue elf.

10 Str
18 Dex
10 Con
16 Int
10 Wis
9 Cha

Took Nimble fingers as my first feat and Weapon Finesse as my second at level 3.

Am I good to go on Trap feats for the high level now? As long as I get the gear and pump my rogue skills to the max? Ive been reading up on the new issues with Spot and Search. So for Enhancements I took the Rogue and Elf Spot enhancements..

For the next feats, should I pick TWF or go for something else?

Thanks in advance.

[Impaqt]

I think the 2wf line is too Costly or a pure rogue.... with NF and Weapon Finesse, I'd look at a progression like this

6 SF:UMD
9: SF:Disable Device, or Toughness, or maybe weapon FOcus.
12: Improved Critical

If you dont take TOughness at 9, you could swap out Nimble Fingelrs late int he build for it.. NF becomes less important as the Build progresses.

[tc12]

I think the 2wf line is too Costly or a pure rogue.... with NF and Weapon Finesse, I'd look at a progression like this

6 SF : UMD
9: SF : Disable Device, or Toughness, or maybe weapon FOcus.
12: Improved Critical

If you dont take TOughness at 9, you could swap out Nimble Fingelrs late int he build for it.. NF becomes less important as the Build progresses.

This and the previous posts are all good recommendations. If you want 2WF, you probably want 2 levels of ranger mixed in. This gets you the first 2WF feat, as well as a favored enemy, cure wand usage, better bow skills, reflex save better than a pure rogue as well as improved fort too, etc. It delays improved evasion from 10th to 12th, but the multiclass benefits are pretty sweet. But then only needing 2 more feats for the next two progressions of 2WF is pretty manageable.

If not ranger, I'd recommend 1-2 fighter levels. This gives you one melee feat for each of those levels and access to some nice cheap enhancements. Nothing wrong with pure rogue too, my predisposition for looking for multiclass synergies goes way back to pen-n-paper DnD so I find myself going multi on most of my DDO characters too.

For feats, I agree with Impaqt overall, but would say that when to take SF : UMD -- when, not if -- depends on your CHA. If it's fairly low (started 12 or less) you might be better waiting until 9th and moving up weap focus. Until you can swap on CHA/UMD items and use your action boost to get your UMD to 20, most race-restricted items will be unusable still.

For your action points, the most efficient spend is to get Rogue search & spot I as well as Elf search & spot I, along with Way of the Mechanic enhancement available after your 6th rogue level. The 19 points for those search/spot, WotM and it's prerequisites will give you a resultant +4 each to your spot, search, disable and open skills, and those 19 include action boost II and a couple of minor bonuses.

With that and decent items for spot/search/disable, you really don't need a lot of rogue feats. I too took nimble fingers early and recommend it, but agree that can be swapped later. That could even be where you slot in SF : UMD later.

Pretty much whatever you do, just keeping ranks in the core skills and UMD will get you on the right track. Traps, locks & doors are the easy part, learning how to do combat with a rogue is the hard part. Rogue melee is all about managing agro. Rogues can do huge damage, but really want the target of that damage swinging mostly at other party members. And absolutely shoud avoid being 1:1 where they take a lot of damage while not getting any of that nice flanking damage. But that's a whole topic unto itself, you should look for other threads for that as it has multiple factors of build, playstyle and party makeup. :)

Good luck.

TC

[Guyven]

Awesome, thanks again for the replies all!

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Stats would be about...
Str 10
Dex 18
Con 10
Int 14
Wis 10
Cha 12

From here would you put the stat point increases & 1750 tome when you get there into Dex or Int or some combination?

[ArkoHighStar]

From here would you put the stat point increases & 1750 tome when you get there into Dex or Int or some combination?

stat increases into dex or int more likely dex, 1750 into con 10 is way low