need help deciding on rogue splash..

[snowlord]

I've been playing with my real life brother who used to be our DM back in our teenage years, we are both in our 40's now .. great Game! brings back memories. Anyways, he is playing a cleric and getting really good, lvl 5 now. I've been playing a Halfling Ranger, lvl 4 now. We are running into more and more traps and rogue stuff.. which leads me here for advice;

1) Should add a splash of rogue to my ranger like and expoliter build?
2) Can any class start uses rogue skills (disarm, spot, unlock), or does it need one level of rogue?
3) make a pure rogue, more DPS based then sneak attack? because we will be grouping mostly.
4) maybe monk/rogue?

My play style has always been melee dps fyi.

Thanks all.. and have a great new year!

[Mercureal]

Open Lock and Disable require one level or Rogue or Artificer. It's not a good idea to multiclass if you're already several levels in and haven't planned it out in advance, and it's always suboptimal to splash Rogue for skills if you didn't start it at level 1. Reason being, you get a 4x skill point multiplier at Character level 1, and things like trap DCs are based on having near-max skills. You might still be able to get there (or might not) but it'll take a lot more skill points.

Example - at level 4, you could have 7 ranks in a given Rogue skill now, which means you'll have 7 ranks to make up for each skill you want to max that you haven't yet put ranks into. It's easier for Search and Spot, which are ranger class skills, but harder for any Rogue-only skills since they'll cost you 2 points at each Ranger level.

I understand the attraction of having Rogue skills, but it's not really necessary to get through most quests. You can avoid most traps, and will usually survive the damage on Normal, or even Hard. As a Ranger, when you get evasion you'll be able to walk right through most traps.

If you still really want the Rogue abilities, I'd suggest that you consider starting a new character. It's a pain, but it doesn't take too long to get to level 4, and you should have another character slot so you don't even need to scrap your Ranger. If you really want to do it on this character, go ahead, but accept that you might very well have trouble getting the harder traps and may blow up trap boxes on occasion. Also, plan it out ahead of time and figure out how you'll spend your points as you level up and what max skill level you can reach. As a VERY rough benchmark, you should have a Disable skill of about twice the level of the quest on Normal, more for Hard and Elite.

[cidchronic]

you may get more skill points at lvl 1 but you can only add so many in to disable or open at that lvl, I wait until lvl 7 for rogue splash, sure you get less points but can put more into disable, search, etc...

just wanted to let you know, you dont have to splash at lvl 1, i dont and i do epic traps, good gaming

[t0r012]

I second Merc's advice here.
If you want to splash you really need to plan it ahead. With a rogue splash it is even more important to plan to take rogue at level 1 for the extra skill points.

[Daemoneyes]

I've been playing with my real life brother who used to be our DM back in our teenage years, we are both in our 40's now .. great Game! brings back memories. Anyways, he is playing a cleric and getting really good, lvl 5 now. I've been playing a Halfling Ranger, lvl 4 now. We are running into more and more traps and rogue stuff.. which leads me here for advice;

1) Should add a splash of rogue to my ranger like and expoliter build?
2) Can any class start uses rogue skills (disarm, spot, unlock), or does it need one level of rogue?
3) make a pure rogue, more DPS based then sneak attack? because we will be grouping mostly.
4) maybe monk/rogue?

My play style has always been melee dps fyi.

Thanks all.. and have a great new year!

1)
take it at first level, most exploiter builds have tight skillpoints so if you go for that first level rogue

2)
no, you need at least one level of a trapper class, so either 1+ rogue or 1+ artificer

3)
depends on your playstyle but i would guess you frontal dps are more your thing?

4)
monk/rogue is a nice combo,
especially with Stunning Fist which makes mobs helpless and grants 150% damage on them and enables sneak attack even when the mob has aggro on you
add to that a nice bluff skill and you will be able to use your sneakattack all the time

i would suggest 9mnk/9rouge/2fighter or 2mnk/18rogue
depending on how much feats you want

5)
or if you like druid a winterwolf rogue build:
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=402771

[Kinerd]

Sneak attack is a somewhat misleading term. Think of it more as precision strikes: you don't need to be hiding, behind the monster, etc., you just need to not have aggro, which is easily accomplished in a group. A rogue in fact gives you the highest single target DPS potential of any melee class.

I would disagree with Daemoneyes and say an exploiter type is unusually forgiving to late rogue skill adds. Rangers get 6 skill points per level and get Search and Spot as a class skill. Even with only 10 Int you can keep Search (1) Spot (1) Disable (2) and Open Lock (2) maxed in all ranger levels, and if you started with 8 Int you can safely slack off in OL. Because you're starting late you also have to pick some to be behind in for awhile. Say you take level 6 as rogue and put all 8 into Disable, then you can go...

level 7: 9 disable, 4 search
level 8: 10 disable, 8 search
level 9: 11 disable, 12 search
level 10: 13 disable, 13 search, 0.5 open lock
level 11: 14 disable/search, 1 open lock, 2 spot
level 12: 15 d/s, 1 ol, 5 spot
level 13: 16 d/s, 1 ol, 8 spot
level 14: 17 d/s, 1 ol, 11 spot
level 15 rogue: 18 disable, 17 search, 8 ol, 11 spot
level 16 ranger: 19 d/s, 8 ol, 13 spot
level 17: 20 d/s, 8 ol, 16 spot
level 18: 21 d/s, 8 ol, 19 spot
level 19: 22 d/s, 8 ol, 22 spot
level 20: 23 d/s/s, 9 ol

That'll work. The monk splash isn't as compelling as it used to be, so going 18/2 isn't a terrible loss.