So, i recently started a kingmaker campaign as a rougue, i'm usually a caster of some kind but this time i wanted to try something different.
We just hitted lvl 4 and the party is made of:
An oracle focused on healing, a paladin, an archer-inquisitor, a druid(with earth domain) and me.
I like the character but i've started to wonder if it's the right campagin for it, and since after the 5 lvl we can't change character anymore here i am asking for advice (spoiler-free please :P).
1- We are exploring a lot but I found a single trap till now, to be precise the druid find the trap (since he's sooooo much better than me in perception) and i disarmed it, it wasn't even a dangerous trap.
2- I'm actually filling the role of the scout, and i think a ranger will do it better and faster. Also the druid is always doing better than me (way better) in perception.
3- I'm constantly outdpsed (i can understand why, but since i don't have anything elso to do is kind of frustrating)
So the questions are:
Does this campaign need a rougue (actually it seem that the answer is no, but we just started)? I mean a classic rougue, trapfinding ecc ecc. Will a ninja do better?
Is just my impression or the rougue will be kind of "less-usefull" more and more with the advancement of the levels?
I dont want to appear like some power-hungry player (i'm not) but i'm really concerned about this.
Thanks in advance for any help
You wont have much opportunities to shine as rogue in kinbgmaker:(
I have no idea if the campaign needs a rougue, nor anything about the campaign at all, but your experiences definitely sound accurate for how a rogue tends to perform in PF. ;) If you hate not really being great at anything compared to the rest of the party, I STRONGLY suggest switching out. It's not going to get any better as the casters gain spells to make your rogue skills obsolete or the druid becomes able to scout by wildshaping into innocuous looking animals, that's for sure.
Did you want to be a "classic rogue"? Because Ninja loses trapfinding, so you'll be even worse at fulfilling that desire as a ninja, if so. I'd suggest Vivvisectionist Alchemist (with Beastmorph or Internal archetypes added), possibly with a rogue dip to shore up the trapfinding and such, to be a "better rogue."
If you're open to something different, I suggest a "Batman" or "God" Wizard. Your party has no arcanist, and with high int for skills and utility spells, you can troubleshoot problems like a Rogue should have been able to. I'd suggest Teleportation subschool Conjuror, because its just so good, but feel free to pick something else for specialization.
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There are not a lot of traps in Kingmaker, but the ones that are there are VERY dangerous (I'm looking at book 3 and 4). A rogue that focuses on being a "face" and who spends their feats to ramp up sneak attack TWF will do pretty well.
That said, rogues are at their best in urban and dungeon environments, and Kingmaker is 90% wilderness. You might want to multiclass, fighter or alchemist are good fits, and all that down time means you can be an alchemist fitted out with every fun toy there is.
Play a rogue if you want a challenge - you will be at a disadvantage compared to a ranger.
You could play up the thieving aspect of rogues, acting as the kingdom's Spymaster. You could plant stolen goods on those you want to discredit, for example.
A half elf rogue with Ancestral Arms (Elven Curve Blade) alternate racial trait might be useful for combat ability, since the Elven Curve Blade works with Weapon Finesse. 1d10 damage with a crit range of 18-20 is pretty nice.
You may want to choose feats to help with getting Sneak Attack, such as Improved Feint or Gang Up. You will probably need to go with Int 13+ to meet the requirement for Combat Expertise.
You can shine with a rogue, but do yourself a favor and pick a good Archetype to trade those trap abilities for something else. Get some good social abilities or take the Scout archetype (to make sneak attacking easier). The AP has few dungeons and fewer traps, but there are plenty of situations a sneaky character will do well. Just volunteer to infiltrate enemy camps and/or assassinate enemy leaders (if the party can cast a few buff spells on you, even better).
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Well I can say it sounds like your build more then the AP. If the druid has a higher perception then you do, Or it could be the druid is casting focused and has a really high Wis. There are a few places in the AP where rogues can shine but there in the middle of the AP. Books 3,4,&5 are where a rogue can really do some good. My best suggestion is to dip a few ranger levels to pick up survival skill. And their wilderness ability's you don't have as a rogue. This will go along way to helping you in all the other books. As a ranger skill set dose allot to help. Over a larger area of the AP.
Posting your build might get you some help in finding something you missed.
We had a rogue in our original KM party and, sadly, there were very few times that she got to shine.
If you want a sneaky character, go ranger.
Alternatively, (and as someone up there ^^ mentioned), you don't have an arcane caster so, perhaps, consider that.
You'll also get a lot of joy out of cavalier.
Note: just finished book 2.
We're just starting the third book and I'm playing a wizard. i did all the trap finding in the party. At one point we came across a huge area of bear traps, I simply cut off a branch and started smacking the ground in front of me. Who needs trapfinding?
Every 'rogue' in my party is multiclassed into another core class. We have a Rogue/Cleric/Fighter, and a Rogue/Fighter/Barbarian/Assassin. I think both only have 2 or 3 levels of Rogue and stopped there.
You do have a lack of arcane ability, and as an item creationist wizard in Kingmaker, I have lots of free time to make w/e I want. The only thing that really stops me from taking over the party, is that I don't wish to. My character has been 'in game' for 2 years. That's a lot of crafting time, in which I've forged weapons and armor of mithril, enchanted them, made boots of levitation, cloaks of resistance, enchanted more weapons, a blessed book, dozens of scrolls, 3 wands, etc.
If you want to continue playing as a Rogue, focus less on traps and more on talking, information gathering, and generally on being a spymaster or assassin type character.
Thanks to everyone for the advice and opinion! They were very useful and i gathered all the data i needed :)
Now i just have to decide if i want to use a ninja, a ranger or a mage. :P
@Wolfsnap: I actually talked to him, and he said i'm free to change character before lvl 5 if i don't like it.
@calagnar: The druid have way more wis than me (for obvious reasons), plus he's and half-elf so he have another bonus on perception (i'm a tiefling). We had 15 points for building the character.
I don't want to multiclass in order to be a better scout, it would be better to just being a pure ranger then.
My build is more or less like the twf here:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/community-creations/rogue-eidolon-s-lab/rogu e-eidolon-s-guide-to-rogues
I resume the thread since we've arrived just before the non-returning point. So this is my last chanche to change anything in my pg.
I actually tried the ninja and it's really better than the rougue (at least for me), but still i've doubts (i'm really ad indecisive person when it come to choose character), plus some things happened and worsed my natural indecision.
As i said actually the party is composed of:
-A cure-focused oracle
-A druid without animal companion but with earth domain
-An inquisitor focused on a bow-build (sort of a glass cannon, except the fact that is not a cannon, since we are at low levels)
...
-A paladin, what i din't say is that it's a "lawful stupid" paladin, plus with 8 in int and 7 in wis . The last time we player we had the chanche to:
resolving peacefully an encounter with a group of cobold living in a silver mine, making them quit their evil religion and having them work for free for us (in the silver mine), but the paladin started to kill them since they were evil, X...
This is not the first time, basically he charge everything that is evil independently of the long-term (and even short-term) consequenze. And this is our "face". We're trying to talk to him but i don't know how effective this will be.
-My actual ninja pg:
Lvl 4
. Catfolk
. 15point-> str10 , dex 18, con 12, int 10, wis 12, cha 14
. use the doublechained kama and he's focused on twf
. no magic equipment (we're "poor" for the lvl since almost all the monster are beast without loot)
So now i have this doubts:
-Will a -twf double-chained kama with some social skill- ninja (which is better than the rougue) be a decent member of the party even as we grow in level?
-Can a sorcerer be a decent item-crafter? (i tought that maybe an arcane face could do good, since our paladin is not the best face ever)
-Being a god-crafter wizard seem an interesting choice, would it be better universalist or conjuration?
-My dm seem a little worried by the dps rate going down if a drop the ninja, i don't see the problem but maybe some more experienced player can?
-I was suggested the cavalier class wich is concepually a very cool class, but even if it's a nice class we had a lot of non-mounted combat till now so it seem that a classic fighter will do better, or even a paladin, but i'm not an expeter in this kind of class so here i'm asking for advice (i also saw the beast rider archetype, maybe a "druid" mout will be better in this campaig?)
Any advice for the chronically-indecisive-me is welcome :)
When I started running this campaign, I told the five players that a rogue was not needed, but if someone really wanted to run one than multi-class with a Fighter or Ranger, and just keep up perception and disable. No one wanted to do that, so we had no Rogue. We had a Paladin (face), Swashbuckler (dex fighter), Druid with bear, Wizard, Ranger and DM NPC Cleric (player request!). Other than one area, outdoors in book 1, where the Ranger and Druid rolled absolutely miserable perception checks and stepped in all the animal traps, a Rogue was not needed, nor missed.
Fast forward to level 5 characters, in the second book. The Paladin and Wizard players dropped out of the game, so the Swashbuckler left and the player is now playing a Wizard. Two new players just joined and one is a Battle Oracle, and the other decided on a Barbarian / Fighter with light armor because he wanted to be the scout with a very high stealth and perception and the ability to do a lot of damage. So that means we have a Druid with bear, Wizard, Ranger, Oracle, Barbarian / Fighter and DM NPC Cleric. This works quite well.
I threw an encounter in at the last session we played to tie book 2 and 3 together (this is NOT an official part of the AP), and that was a CR8 Imperial Dragon that did some early surprise damage, but they really trounced after a shaky beginning.
For your situation, I would not go the Rogue route. As others have said, it is not that critical.
-- david
Papa.DRB
We had saw lots of character classes over the course of Kingmaker. Witch, ranger, barbarian, bard, summoner, fighter (x2), rogue/assassin, wizard/rogue/arcane trickster, cleric/inquisitor, and sorcerer. The ranger was the only to last the entire campaign. Most the time we had no trap monkey and none was really needed. Heck, we spent the last 2 books with no real healer.
Basically play what you think will be fun. We had some really odd party combinations over the course of the campaign and we got on just fine most of the time. There are only a couple instances where you face a situation that you can't just retreat from and come back later with different resources.
You know, for Kingmaker, a 'face' is all you really need. We installed a Sorcerer who started with a 20 Cha and an 18 Con (he dumped everything else), and we made him our king. When it comes down to it though, I, as the wizard in the group and the Diplomat, run the kingdom. The player of the Sorcerer had to leave due to family issues, but we kept him in as the King (and since we have an NPC queen, we now have an NPC king too, despite the rules not allowing that). But even before then, I did a lot of the decision making, planning, and organizing of what we need, where it needs to go, etc. etc.
Just because someone is the king, doesn't mean he controls the throne. You could easily play a wizard who controls the throne behind the scenes.
And I agree, the first book blows when it comes to loot. Our GM custom built the last encounter so that we'd get any loot at all, and had to do the same for the second book.
Our group is finishing up book two, my rogue character is Queen. The other characters are;
an Elf Sorceress (the Magistar) with an Owl familiar,
Human Lion-Shaman-Druid (the Councilor) with a mountain lion companion,
Dwarven Swamp-Ranger (the Warden) with a raccoon companion,
and a halfling Paladin (the General)on a Boar that replaced a Dwarven Aldori-Fighter (turned into a werewolf so we put him down).
The rest of the party put together about equals my character's skill set.
Perception, Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Swim, Stealth, Ride all have been used alot!
Survival, Intimidate, Spellcraft, Heal, Handle Animal I let the other players take care.
Acrobatics, Appraise, Climb, Disguise, Disable Device, Escape Artist, Knowledge (all!) have been used frequently.
Perform, Sleight of Hand, Fly, Use Magic Device, Craft have been used little.
All the Exploration seems to be based off Perception with some Survival thrown in. The rest of the party has difficulty telling the difference between clouds and dive-bombing wyverns!
If it weren't for my rogue, I believe we would of had a few TPKs and several other dead characters.
There is also ONE thing in this AP that is tailored perfectly just for a Rogue.
Also, when you are Queen you get to set of the Thieves Guild!;D
2 rogues in our party
both multiclassed , both seem happy and busy
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Rogue worked great in ours, but totally recommend an archetype for the trapfinding abilities as there's very few traps. I didn't feel it'd be kind to let a player walk blind into character making with that being the case. Plenty of side scenarios for the DM for a "spymaster" dealing with the criminal underworld, though this has taken a different turn with our poor rogue's untimely demise in Book 2.
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Rogue worked great in ours, but totally recommend an archetype for the trapfinding abilities as there's very few traps. I didn't feel it'd be kind to let a player walk blind into character making with that being the case. Plenty of side scenarios for the DM for a "spymaster" dealing with the criminal underworld, though this has taken a different turn with our poor rogue's untimely demise in Book 2. ** spoiler omitted **
Those be the breaks sometimes.... sigh :)
It looks like we're going to have two rogues, or variants thereof. One is going to be a ninja (who doesn't get trapfinding anyway) and the other wants to be a Scout (who does, but with the right talents should have plenty of other things to contribute).
And yes, the ninja player has been warned that suitable weapons and equipment are likely to be rare. There is at least one point where I can put in an exotic weapon as treasure, but they're not even proficient with bows which is a bit of a handicap for anyone in this campaign.