Acrobat variant

[defen]

At a brief glance, the acrobat rogue requires only two stats to function well - strength and constitution. Assuming maxed strength and ten points in con, that's six orphaned build points floating about. What if they were used on charisma to fuel a paladin splash? I'm thinking of a 12/6/2 Acrobat2/Kensei1/paladin. Would this be viable? Would a 17/2/1 rogue/pally/fighter (or maybe monk for added saves) be superior?

[Jaid314]

At a brief glance, the acrobat rogue requires only two stats to function well - strength and constitution. Assuming maxed strength and ten points in con, that's six orphaned build points floating about. What if they were used on charisma to fuel a paladin splash? I'm thinking of a 12/6/2 Acrobat2/Kensei1/paladin. Would this be viable? Would a 17/2/1 rogue/pally/fighter (or maybe monk for added saves) be superior?

try thinking out loud for me, i'm trying to grasp why you would stop at level 17 for a rogue.

specifically, what single feat do you so desperately need after freeing up feats by going THF (the THF feats are not needed) that you need a single level of fighter to ensure you will not be qualifying for acrobat 3?

anyways, i personally would go 2 monk instead of 2 paladin. you get your stances, your animal path, and all the perks of being a monk (sadly, you don't get to choose light or dark path, but you can't have everything. plus, neither light or dark are really all *that* awesome at level 3 anyways)

[FrozenNova]

Acrobat 1: Dex mod to sneak damage.

[Cardtrick]

At some level, anything is viable. That said, I'm not really seeing the benefit of a paladin splash, unless it's solely for flavor.

First, most rogues will want to put at least a couple of build points in int for skills. It's also worthwhile on an acrobat to put at least a couple points toward dex, assuming you're using quarterstaves (and otherwise, why go acrobat at all?) since dex bonus adds to an acrobat's damage. So I can't really agree that you have 6 free build points that might as well go to cha (although, putting points into cha is useful for adding to your UMD, so it's certainly not a total waste).

2 levels of paladin gets you 1x smite evil (useful, but not exceptional since damage depends on your paladin level), +1 to AC (useless) and saves (nice) from Aura of Good, 1x Lay on Hands (pretty useless since it again depends on paladin level) and Divine Grace (+ cha mod to saves), along with +2 BAB and +3 Fort save. That's certainly not terrible, but it doesn't seem to have a ton of synergy with rogue (since rogues depend enormously on their reflex save, which suffers here, can't really get usable AC, and can self-heal with scrolls via UMD).

Compared to the more common 13/6/1 (rogue/fighter/monk) acrobat II/kensai I, your 12/6/2 (rogue/ffighter/paladin) acrobat II/kensai I would have:

-1 d6 of sneak attack
-1 rogue class feat (meaning you have to miss out on either improved evasion or opportunist . . . deal breaker right there, for me, but you may disagree)
-1 feat from the martial arts list (probably power attack or toughness)
+1 BAB (taking into account monk's flurry of blows)
+0 AC (it's a wash b/w monk and pali's Aura of Good)
+2 fort save, -1 ref save, -1 will save (taking into account Aura of Good's +1 to all, but not Divine Grace yet)
no monk stance (so losing out on 2.5% doublestrike or stacking +2 to strength)
+ Lay on Hands once per rest for 11 * Cha mod healing
+ Cha mod to all saves (Divine Grace)
+ 1x Smite Evil for 10 damage every 90 seconds
- monk ki strikes for 1d6 elemental every 6 seconds (considerably more damage than smite evil, if you remember to use them)
- monk elemental finishers (nothing special w/ only monk 1)
- monk wis bonus to AC (not useful, really)

Probably some other stuff I missed, but that's what I see at first glance, ignoring enhancements. So, you definitely get a net benefit to saves by going the paladin route, as long as your cha modifier is positive. By pumping your cha up, you can pump your saves up -- although this likely commits you to wearing a +cha item, taking a slot that could be used for something else. You lose a bit in DPS, between the sneak attack dice, the monk finishers, and the monk stance. I doubt the +1 BAB and the very limited Smite Evil makes up for this. The worst thing, to me, is losing the extra rogue feat from Rogue 13 -- improved evasion and opportunist both seem critical to playing a rogue, to me. You also lose one more feat from monk, but that's not too big a deal -- 6 fighter means you'll have plenty of feats to play with regardless.

I don't think you'll cripple your character by going with paladin, but I don't think you get enough out of it to be worth it.

[defen]

The basic idea is high saves and a strong UMD without accumulating raid gear. In light of the dex bonus, it's trivial to go with 10 build points in strength and constitution, and 6 in dexterity and charisma, respectively.

I did not realize that opportunist was implemented. Definitely want that and improved evasion. Perhaps the build may be stronger as a 13 rogue/4 fighter/3 paladin for the freebie immunities, or 13 rogue/6 paladin/1 fighter, or maybe just a 17/3 rogue/paladin (though the feats come out a bit skimpy that way).

[Cardtrick]

17/3 might be interesting . . . that's no fewer feats than a typical 20 rogue would get, and those seem to do fine. You'd have knockdown immunity from acrobat II, improved evasion with very high saves from pali, and immunity to fear and disease. If you take care to build with plenty of HP, you'd be looking at a very survivable character, I think. And 17 rogue levels would give you solid sneak attack damage (although nowhere near a capstoned, Assassin III pure rogue). You'd miss out on Kensai, so your DPS on crit-immune enemies would be pretty poor using quarterstaffs. But it might be worthwhile for you. Despite we said before, you'd probably be better off ignoring dex, since that only adds to sneak attack damage, and instead boosting cha for better smite evils to help you a bit against crit-immune enemies. With 17 rogue levels, you could probably safely dumpstat int and still hit your important skills -- especially if you went human, which you'd probably want to anyway for the feat.

If I were going to do a pali/rogue, that's definitely what I'd go with. I feel like 13/6/1 is too much of a mix of classes that aren't especially complimentary.