When to splash Rogue?

[Propane]

You might want to consider putting a few points into open locks... hot swap a +15 item and you can open a lot of stuff - (shroud puzzle rooms - I am looking at you!)

[Therigar]

It's 10% less DPS for a lot of survivability.

That's a pretty big assumption. Having capped and TR'd a dwarf fighter I can assure you that survivability is not an issue. Taking 2 rogue levels for evasion that you are not going to use because you are wearing light armor instead of heavy does not make good sense.

Going the evasion route makes sense if you are building to compensate for the lost AC. But, why fighter if you are doing that? Why not ranger using and exploiter build?

The extra fighter feat, extra HP and extra AC provide the survivability you will need.

But, to each their own.

[EKKM]

With the posted int of 10 (and +2 tome i assume used at 7)

You can take rogue at 6 and 16.
Still get 23 umd. (and 23 intimidate 12 jump and 13 balance)

What about the other 24 skill points he missed out on? What benefit does taking any other class at level one give that offsets that?

Taking level one of any other class at character level one on a rogue splash is a complete waste 99% of the time as you can get the same benefit of the second class at character level 2.

The only situaton I can think of would be a build that required certain feats to be taken in a particular order.

[Fecerak]

Because while 24 skill points with a maximum rank of 4 isn't really that great, no reason to lose it with no gain at all.

If you get something for free, it's usually a good idea to take it.

You could have 4 extra ranks of jump, tumble, swim or the like. Because while those skills won't do THAT much, they can't do less than nothing anyways.

[Astraghal]

That's a pretty big assumption. Having capped and TR'd a dwarf fighter I can assure you that survivability is not an issue.

Always having divines and arcanes around to heal and buff you is a pretty big assumption too.

Taking 2 rogue levels for evasion that you are not going to use because you are wearing light armor instead of heavy does not make good sense.

I would be using light armor in order to benefit from evasion, if that's what you mean.

Going the evasion route makes sense if you are building to compensate for the lost AC. But, why fighter if you are doing that? Why not ranger using and exploiter build?

To get an AC that matters at end game you would have to gimp your DS more than the 10% I'd lose by not taking the fighter capstone.

The extra fighter feat, extra HP and extra AC provide the survivability you will need.

Not in the content I run.

But, to each their own.

It's a simple tradeoff.

You lose 10% DPS and gain evasion and no fail UMD checks on all wands and scrolls.

[Kinerd]

Because while 24 skill points with a maximum rank of 4 isn't really that great, no reason to lose it with no gain at all.

If you get something for free, it's usually a good idea to take it.

You could have 4 extra ranks of jump, tumble, swim or the like. Because while those skills won't do THAT much, they can't do less than nothing anyways.

I came up with another order that ends up (very very slightly) favoring the fighter-first.

Level 1: Fighter, 4 Intimidate 2 UMD.
Levels 2-7: Fighter, each 1 Intimidate 0.5 UMD. Total 10 Intimidate, 5 UMD.
Levels 8-11: Fighter, each 1 Intimidate 0.5 UMD 0.5 Balance. Total 14 Intimidate, 7 UMD, 2 Balance.
Levels 12-18: Fighter, each 1 Intimidate 1 Balance. Total 21 Intimidate, 7 UMD, 9 Balance.
Levels 19-20: Rogue, each 1 Intimidate 8 UMD. Total 23 Intimidate, 23 UMD, 9 Balance.

Compare to:

Level 1: Rogue, 4 Intimidate 4 UMD 4 Balance (and others).
Levels 2-7: Fighter, each 1 Intimidate 0.5 UMD. Total 10 Intimidate, 7 UMD, 4 Balance.
Levels 8-19: Fighter, each 1 Intimidate 1 UMD. Total 22 Intimidate, 19 UMD, 4 Balance.
Level 20: Rogue, 1 Intimidate 4 UMD 4 Balance. Total 23 Intimidate, 23 UMD, 8 Balance.

It is not possible to achieve the same Balance score going Rogue 1 while also maxing Intimidate and UMD. Hence, going Fighter 1 allows the build to gain 1 (one) Balance rank (at the cost of Haggle, Jump, Swim, whatever). As I said, very very slight! But it is certainly something.

[Parody]

My advice from what I've read is this....

Take the rogue lvl at 1 and 10. 10th lvl allows you to get enough ranks in UMD for a lot of items around then and this way you can use it for Ruins of Gianthold, before then, AoE damage hasn't been too much of a concern to me. This is also around the time AC starts to really need to be "focused" on (i.e. its worthless without a lot of items), so wearing heavy armor or similar isn't really a good choice.

Once you hit 20th, lesser reincarnate and become a lvl 20 ftr with extreme double striking goodness because your evasion scores won't mean enough in epic content and your hp will see you through.