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Where I game at everyone always seem to take on the melee and caster class all the time and leave us high and dry for some skills that most people don't think they need until they need it.
I wanna play a rogue in core that is good at skill but kinda effective in combat. Any one know how I can do this?
That's a question that has alot of different ways to answer. For rogues, it'll be a given that you'll be amongst the best in the game in terms of skills. As for combat, there are a few questions that need to be answered. Such questions include:
Will I use Strength or Dexterity as my primary stat for attacks?
Do I want to focus on ranged or melee weapons?
The first question matters as it will effect the type of weapons you'll want to use. If you're looking to use martial weapons for the higher damage dice, then a level dip might be in your build's future. Such builds usually focus on Strength being the primary attack stat.
For builds that require a little more guile and finesse, then Dexterity is the way to go. These are the types of rogues I usually see the most as they offer a benefit of good starting AC at low levels. However, they usually cost a feat (like Weapon Finesse for melee builds) to pull off successfully.
The next choice is usually affected by the stat choice you want to focus on. Archery works off Dexterity, which can be a nice side benefit towards Weapon Finesse if you find that your archery build is forced into melee (which can happen). It's a little feat intensive, however. The lack of a full BAB is a challenge with this build too. Conversely, a ranger with the correct trait can almost be as good as a rogue in terms of skills and iconic ability.
I digress. Sticking with the rogue, you'll have to make those decisions before I could really continue to provide any solid build advice.
A Ranger with a level or two of Rogue for trapfinding and a rogue talent is a solid build. It has almost as good skills as a pure Rogue, but much better combat ability.
One thing I've found fun for my own characters who is about 90% core: if you're building a true skill-monkey, you're not going to be very efficient in combat, compared to people who are built for it. The way around that is to instead be combat-support. Bard song and bard spells can be very good for support, especially if you grab some wands, too. Add in two levels of rogue for the extra class skills, trap spotter, and evasion, and build yourself with a decent Int, and keep using your FCB on skillpoints, and you'll have skills for every occasion.
It's not the most efficient build, and you won't be a specialist on anything, but you'll be able to shore up any weakness that a given party might have.
Off the top of my head... A human or elf Rogue with 16+ Dexterity and 14+ Intelligence can do really well. Feats can go to Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, and Improved Disarm. Talents can go to Finesse Rogue, a bonus combat feat, and whatever else you want. Since you'll have Uncanny Dodge, you can get away with neglecting the Perception skill, as the rest of your group probably all maxes is out. You're safe letting your party find any traps, while you disarm them. That's if you run into any at all. I know my own rogue didn't run into any until she was 13th.
Good luck to you!
-Matt
This thread may or may not get moved to Advice ;)
For a more "General Core Discussion", playing a Skill Monkey character in Core is more challenging than it would be in the non-Core Campaign. Several of the options that reduce Multiple Attribute Dependency (MAD) aren't allowed in Core, making it more difficult to have a skill focus and be effective in combat. For instance, rogues lose a few of the ways that make it easier to make Sneak Attacks, apply Dex to damage, etc. The variety of classes that are based on skills is greatly reduced as well; the average skills per level for the Core classes is less than 4+Int per level.
Of the skill based characters in Core, the Rogue is the only one that can disable magic traps, which makes having at least a level or two of Rogue valuable. I've seen a few multi-class Martial characters such as Rangers, Barbarians, and Paladins take a couple of levels of Rogue to add some skills at the expense of delayed class features and a minor loss of hit points / BAB. If multi-classing ins't desirable, a bard could be a decent alternative (though it loses the ability to disarm magic traps.) A ranged bard has almost as many skill points as a rogue, but is a bit easier to play in a support / skill role out of the box. Bards also have all the Knowledges as a class skill, which Rogues don't.
Don't get me wrong, it's quite possible to play from 1-11 with a single class Core rogue. Straying back into the Advice category, if you've read all the above and still would like to play a single class rogue, you're going to need to make a few choices that will define your character.
First, is your rogue going to be primarily melee or ranged? A melee rogue is more vulnerable than a ranged rogue, and often needs to have a greater investment in Constitution (hit points) than a ranged rogue would. Additionally, a melee rogue may consider prioritizing strength over dex. Weapon Finesse is an option for a melee rogue, but only adds to attack, not damage. The melee rogue's main advantage over a ranged rogue is that they can usually sneak attack more often as long as they have a flanking buddy; a ranged rogue will usually get one Sneak Attack per round at most.
Regardless of what class(es) you decide on, you're probably going to have to narrow down what skills you want to focus on. It's ultimately impossible to have all the skills that might be called on for a Pathfinder; even with 8+Int skill points per level you can't have high ranks in all the knowledges, Perception, Diplomacy, Disable Device, Linguistics, Heal, Profession: Miner and Craft: Trapsmith. Determining what skills you want to focus on can shift the priority of your Ability points; if you decide that you want your character to be super stealthy with a focus in Perception, Disable Device, Stealth and the like, it might mean that you can lower your Charisma and leave the Diplomacy to the Paladin in the party (despite it being the second most used skill.)
Once you've decided the route that sounds best, I'm sure you can get some opinions on specific build advice.
Keep in mind that a Rogue only gets Knowledge (Local) and Knowledge (dungeoneering) as class skills. Having tons of skill ranks won't change. A Bard dip might be a good fix for that.
personally I'd go with Bard. I think the bard only has a total of like 5 skills which aren't class skills for them. plus at second level they gain versatile performance which means they can use their performance skill in place of two other skills.
plus you buff the others really well. whilst the martials may have abilities to give them +1 you'll be able to give every +1. and my personal favourite reason for playing a bard, unlike the other classes is that in combat. nobody expects you to deal a lot of damage, which I use as an excuse to use a bunch of flavourful but not necessarily highly optimal weapons. plus its always nice to be able to play a character with high charisma. could have a bunch of awesome rallying speeches ready, or maybe a whole conman shtick prepared to get you out of trouble.
As others have said, the first decision is melee or ranged. This decides on Str or dex as the main stat. Also it pushes you towards a race. Melee: half orc has some great weapon proficiencies. Ranged: Elf gives you Longbow.
After that decision, others will follow.
Consider being a ranger with a dip into rogue.
I know this isn't what you asked for, but since almost everybody agrees the rogue is underpowered, and using core only doesn't help, ask your GM if you can play the unchained rogue. It's finesse training helps a ton to remove the strain the rogue gets from being an ineffective combatant, and will allow you to focus your time and feats on other things, instead of trying to keep your head above water in combat.
This was originally posted in the Core PFS boards, so Trapfinder trait and Unchained rogue won't help ;)
I would suggest forget Rogue and play a Bard if you're limited to core only. Versatile Performance makes your skill points do double duty.
For example, at 2nd level you get Versatile Performance and can select one type of perform. If you select Strings it counts as both Bluff and Diplomacy. While you might not otherwise need perform(strings) in this way you're getting all 3 skills at your perform skill check.
Plus the ability to take 10 on all knowledge checks makes the bard a more competent skill user than the rogue could ever hope to be.
Anyways we already have two bards and currently my rogue has been better at certain skills and not at other (mainly knowledges)
you already have two bards? you guys really shouldn't be shy on skills? I mean if you wanna play a rogue play a rogue, I think people should play whatever they want and the GM should make adjustments for the balance of the party. will traps play a big part of the campaign do you know?