You miss the point. A pure rogue has access to all the 4th level spells you do as well, only he has rogue tricks that cannot be duplicated via spells. You're selling rogue tricks for wand charges, which is not a good trade. (unless the campaign is going to go into the teens...)
4th level spells is not a bad place to be. It gives me options like invisibility, dimension door (I've used that a few times to bail out a party member or two, as well as some quick battlefield rearrangement) Haste, a couple of offensive spells, and some utility tricks. With some supplementary wand use, you have a lot of options.
Except I'm also not spending the money the rogue is on wands, my spells are effective which wands are not, I can change my spells when I want -- the rogue can't do the same with his wands. My spells can't directly be taken away -- the wands can be, and most the rogue tricks aren't all that great.
In fact all told the rogue with "wands" is spending around 21,000 gp per 4th level spell he wants a wand of with low caster level and low DC.
My spells can't directly be taken away -- the wands can be, and most the rogue tricks aren't all that great.That is, if nobody takes away your spellbook.
Yeah there's a feat for that. Besides the point still stands. If they can get the book they can get the wands, and even with the book I still have left what I prepared -- the rogue is completely out. Plus all my other points -- you know the DC, the caster level, the fact I'll have more than fourth level spells when the rogue won't... oh yeah and the cost of the wands being so high.
I still think the AT needs the rogue BAB, not the weaker one. While most of his magic is used for buffs, he gets a lot of punch out of ranged touch spells if he can sneak attack with them.
It just makes sense that he'd be slightly better at melee than a straight wizard or sorcerer. He can use more weapons and also sneak attack with them, so he has better martial training. The class should reflect that, IMHO.
Once he gets the capstone, ANY damage spell can be sneaked, making lower-level spells pretty effective one-shot contributions.
As far as skills go, a wizard-focused AT will be about as skillful as a standard rogue, given his craving for a high int. score. Ranged legerdemain may not come into play that much, but it's great when it does.
Max out his UMD, and he's as good with divine magic items as any other rogue.
He's not in your face. A clever AT may not be noticed at all. That's the charm of the class for me. Without his spells, he's still got a few tricks up his sleeve. With them, he's a slippery opponent.
I looooove my Arcane Trickster and he isn't even an AT yet. Apparently he is at his weakest levels (3 wizard/2 rogue) and still he has managed to do better than every single other character in my group. For one he has survived. Our DM throws quite a varied bunch of challenges at us, making versatility quite the life saver.
How have I made him work?
Elf, 18 point buy, transmuter
11 STR
17 DEX
12 CON
17 INT
10 WIS
8 CHA
Notice this is not min/maxed. I hate playing low wisdom characters since no self-insight easily leads to being in way too dangerous situations. The charisma minus got slightly off-set by fast-talker (my character lies a lot) and magical knack has been a blessing.
ALSO for some reason my DM plays with retroactive gaining of skills points when INT levels (which is utterly ridiculous, but I won't complain about the extra 4 points gained at level 4)
I started with the Rogue level, and hence my transmuter bonus went into dex. Once I start having more magical items I'll let it slip into strength and let gear carry me through on the dex side.
My party has used me as both rogue and wizard (actually being prime caster for a while), whereas I've insisted on filling the sneaky role. Since my character has 18 INT now he can think of, and execute, plans far more complex than his lesser endowed rogue counter part. Scorching ray will later on allow him to have about as many sneak attacks pr. round as a rogue TWF'ing, just on touch AC instead.
I plan on going 4 levels AA in the end, loosing that one level of caster for the possibility of the antimagic field arrow. I really want to make an arrow with a sticky head and plant such an arrow at the back of a dragon's ear.
For now my soon-to-be AT is keeping up with the others in his group through him providing tons more of loot and NEVER being without an option (also pick-pocketing fellow mages at the wizard school did grant him a couple of very nifty rods).
Spider Climb/Invis/Exp. retreat/Alter Self all makes him a better rogue than most rogues. Hence he has so far provided the party with more than 50 % of it's loot (including the very important bag of holding). His diversity has allowed him not only to wipe out a thieves guild, but also run it better than the former leader and combine it with a legal business (a front) for a constant cash machine in one of the better harbour cities.
My point is; if you play an AT accept that sometimes you don't shine in combat. Your work while not killing stuff is AT least as important. Exploit that high INT score for some devious scheming.
At later levels you benefit from any shape changing and magic jar WAY more than ordinary wizards do. But all in all you're way more likely to be a very fun rogue sub than a wiz sub (in fact I sincerely disliked being the wiz sub). Oh: bonded object is quite a thrill as well: that one spontaneous spell pr. day is very nifty and fits into your Swiss army knife feel and being a rogue the chance of you loosing that bonded object is quite a lot smaller than for a wizard.
PS. I'd love the rogue BAB... But on the other hand: full casting progression, full SA progression, nice class abilities AND ok BAB seems too much.
That is, if nobody takes away your spellbook.
The AT I played with solved that by going Sorcerer.
That is, if nobody takes away your spellbook.The AT I played with solved that by going Sorcerer.
A Wizard/Rogue should be pretty apt at magically booby trapping his/her spellbook anyway ;)
Well I covered the magus arcane trickster in my guide that I put up. I feel it works best if mixed with vivisectionist alchemist myself so you gain some additional buffs and some useful extracts (at lower level) and the ability to largely ignore UMD (at later levels)
Personally I would look more to arcane accuracy when it comes to arcana. Part of the problem is that you end up with a BAB of +13 if you follow up the AT with EK... which means another caster level lost, and you have fewer spell levels and spells per day.
Having the armored casting is nice though and with offensive defense can leave you feeling fairly solid on the front line, and your save throws balance well (good fort and will mixed with good fort and reflex before finishing with good reflex and will).
A player in my campaign plays one, it is a halfling wizard/rogue/AT, eventually I decided to houserule a bit.
The character didn't do a very good job keeping up with the rest of the party, attacks just a bit short in most cases to deal fair damage, though it was effective against opponents with relatively low AC it wasn't effective against some of the tougher opponents at level 12.
I will be raising the AT's BAB and hp a bit and supplying rogues with ninja ki, don't want them to ditch trapfinding and evasion to be somewhat combat effective might have some of the ninja tricks have a prerequiste though so some tricks might be less obvious choices, think it will go a long way towards making rogues and AT's viable choices.
AT is almost good, but it really does need 3/4ths BAB. Or it needs that feat from Undefeatable that allows you to enter with only sneak attack level, and probably a rogue talent in the middle.
Because 3 rogue/3 wiz is a pain. Street mage fixes AT to be a wizard that's good at being roguelike, with 1/5 entry requirement rather than 3/3.
So yeah, you need 3/4ths BAB and a couple of rogue talents to be a rogue that casts wizard spells, or you need the Street Mage feat. Otherwise trickster is at best fun flavor that can help plug the hole of a rogue and a weak arcane caster.
AT in its current form isn't suited to arcane casters that have more abilities than spells. Bards, magus, summoner get much less out of tricksters than sorcs, wizard, witches, etc.
I think it would be a good candidate for a reform to a base class much like magus/summoner/bard up to 6th level spells with some early access to spells that are fitting for a rogue build, might try my hand at it later today though I am terrible with creating proper formats online.
I guess I'm one of those glass half full types. I see it as gaining skill points. (vs a single class mage)The AT has 4 SP; the single class wizard has 2 SP, + the favoured class bonus. The gain isn't that great (is 1 SP/level worth 2 or 3 CL?)
To be fair almost all people I know select hitpoints rather than skill points, you do need a fair ammount to survive some bad rolls, two failed saves and a crit is likely to kill you in a given encounter if you dont focus on hitpoints a bit more.
AT is almost good, but it really does need 3/4ths BAB. Or it needs that feat from Undefeatable that allows you to enter with only sneak attack level, and probably a rogue talent in the middle.
Because 3 rogue/3 wiz is a pain. Street mage fixes AT to be a wizard that's good at being roguelike, with 1/5 entry requirement rather than 3/3.
So yeah, you need 3/4ths BAB and a couple of rogue talents to be a rogue that casts wizard spells, or you need the Street Mage feat. Otherwise trickster is at best fun flavor that can help plug the hole of a rogue and a weak arcane caster.
Honestly I wouldn't enter with rogue at all. If I'm going sorcerer I would go with ninja and get the swift action invisibility trick -- with that you can ray snipe all day (almost) I would also pick up pressure points to add a bit of strength or dexterity damage to my attacks. It might not amount to much in a fight (2~4 points of one or the other on average) but it's still something, and if you are getting 2~4 points on each of 4~8 people it can matter.
For wizards (and magus) I like alchemist (vivisectionist) to get sneak attack. This means at level 6 you'll have 6 first level spells, 3 second level spells (possibly 4) plus 5 first level extracts as well as better saves a mutagen and a discovery.
Over the long run it sure is. Because it comes with the following benefits.
1. An enhanced Reflex save... With EVASION. Which continues to improve on a fast track.
2. Enhanced access to class skills. If you're going the Arcane Trickster route, you're not going to be spending all of your skill points on "booky" knowledge skills.
3. A much wider range of utility that doesn't rely purely on spellcasting.When you take a look at the total package the AT gives, 3 caster levels is really not that great of a loss.
This. An AT works best as a rogue replacement. High skills per level and high-level magic are why it works. 3/4 casting weakens it. Not taking truly stealthy classes weakens it.
See my guide for my opinion and a few sample builds at the bottom.
There's a guy working on an alternate build I'll stick in there for comparison, when I get it. It's a vivisectionist/magus, IIRC.
A bard variant that lost out on some party support and gained some rogue-ish abilities instead could be really cool.Just be a bard!
:D
I know you're just being silly, the only thing is that you don't get the ranged legerdemain and sneak attack that way. :)
But you got me thinking... qualifying for Arcane Trickster through Bard isn't a horrible idea, especially if you're thinking of being a party face and are planning to play a support character (not a heavy hitter) anyway.
It's almost a shame you need 2d6 sneak attack to qualify for the PrC. It would be interesting to see an Arcane Trickster whose base class was Bard alone.
There are already a couple Bard variants like that: Archaeologist and Sandman.
Archaeologist doesn't mesh well with AT, but could serve as a replacement, if what you're after is a rogue-like spellcaster.
Sandman gets sneak attack at 5th, so an interesting option for entry into Arcane Trickster could be Rogue 1/Sandman 5. Even better, I think, would be Sandman 5/Vivisectionist 1.
A bard variant that lost out on some party support and gained some rogue-ish abilities instead could be really cool.Just be a bard!
:D
I know you're just being silly, the only thing is that you don't get the ranged legerdemain and sneak attack that way. :)
But you got me thinking... qualifying for Arcane Trickster through Bard isn't a horrible idea, especially if you're thinking of being a party face and are planning to play a support character (not a heavy hitter) anyway.
It's almost a shame you need 2d6 sneak attack to qualify for the PrC. It would be interesting to see an Arcane Trickster whose base class was Bard alone.
There are already a couple Bard variants like that: Archaeologist and Sandman.
Archaeologist doesn't mesh well with AT, but could serve as a replacement, if what you're after is a rogue-like spellcaster.
Sandman gets sneak attack at 5th, so an interesting option for entry into Arcane Trickster could be Rogue 1/Sandman 5. Even better, I think, would be Sandman 5/Vivisectionist 1.
I think that'd be a terrible build. Bard's abilities are tied mostly in with class features than spells. getting AT for bard spell progression and sneak attack while losing BAB and bard abilities sounds like a loss to me.
If they had a 'bardic trickster' prestige class maybe, but just take the archetype. As is it sounds like a great way to make a really weak character.