You're really concerned that he's going to have his play experience ruined by trading a 5% increase in to-hit for a 5% reduction in the enemies to-hit? Do you really think the difference between this two- handed d10 slashing weapon and that two-handed d10 slashing weapon is enough to ruin his play experience?
IQ works differently than strength because it refers to your deviation from the norm (so it's a floating range, and the further from the norm the greater the difference between your score and 100) rather than a static measure based on an absolute. Int 10 absolutely equals IQ 100, since the former is the median, mean, and mode of the bell curve-shaped distribution of possible abilities as generated by 3d6, and and IQ of 100 is by definition the mean, median, and modal score of the population on which scores are based. Since both IQ and 3d6 are bell-curve shaped normal distributions, we can map them onto a distribution and see that an 18 represents the top half-a-percent of the population, which is equivalent to something like a 145 IQ. If you're curious what your character's IQ would be, you can determine the percentage chance of rolling lower than you did and compare that to a normalized IQ distribution chart. ('course actually 10 is a little low, but actually 100 is a little low, too, since people have gotten a tiny bit smarter since the most popular IQ test was normed!)
So a Bookish Rogue... http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/bookish-rogue ...Knife Master... http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/rogue/archetypes/paizo---rogue -archetypes/knife-master ...is pretty much what you want, and doesn't require a lot of legalistic acrobatics (which means you still have a lot of choices within your build). The trait Classically Trained gives you spellcraft as a class skill, and you'll need spellcraft to scribe spells into your spell book. Also the Traveler's Spell Book, a 1 lb spell book that holds fewer spells, is thematically a good piece of equipment for a lightly encumbered, nimble adventurer-on-the-move. Also-also, the previously mentioned favored class bonus for elf rogues makes a lot of sense here. This is all assuming you are cool with being a rogue, building your character around this theme, and being a bit more of a generalist than most characters the boards develops; not nearly so good at _one thing_ as the typical character by focus group tends to be. The games I actually play tend to reward diversity and flexibility more than the theory-crafters and keyboard builders seem to think, though, so maybe that's a good thing? |
