Hey there. Rogue just hit 4th level and is looking over which talent to choose next. I'm considering taking Minor Magic for Detect Magic, as our wizard has divination barred and refuses to ever prepare the spell (he claims he can spare one slot, but not two). I'm iffy on the only three uses per day of Minor Magic though. In my experience Detect Magic is a spell that gets used fairly frequently, so I'm not sure 3/day is enough.
My other thought was dancing lights, which the wizard player admits would free up one of his spell slots, and he'd agree to use the two free ones to prepare Detect Magic if I did that. We have one human in the party, and the three others are all low-light vision races, so light sources are fairly important for us.
...And of course Minor Magic now allows Major Magic later, which could be useful, and for once I actually have justification for taking Minor Magic.
Really though, I'm not sure how useful either one would be. I've played a few rogues, but as I've said, I've never had any reason to need Minor Magic, and so I've never gone for it, or major magic. So I'm wondering on peoples' opinions of whether it's worth it, and if it is whether Detect Magic or Dancing Lights is a better choice.
The character is a 4th level (Chameleon archetype) Rogue by the way. Her first talent was combat trick, so that one's already taken.
I wouldn't take Minor Magic, you get one cantrip 3/day; a level 1 wizard or sorc gets 3 or 4 of them infinite times per day. Hardly seems fair...
The Finesse Rogue talent might be good, don't know enough about your character. And there's always Weapon Training. You can take a Ninja Trick, like the one that gives you a climb speed. You can even use Ninja Trick to take another Combat Trick (yes, it works by RAW). I would mostly try to burn rogue talents for feats like that; they're pretty subpar.
Beyond those...I personally think Cunning Trigger + Quick Trapsmith can be fun (keep the traps in a bag of holding; use stealth to lay them out before the party comes to engage the enemy, then spend your swifts gradually activating them -- obviously won't be as useful with some DMs as it will others). Slow Reactions is pretty nice, also.
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I agree with Streamo'Sky. Grab feats with the talents, especially Finesse Rogue. The rogue in our party does very well and has both finesse and weapon focus. I'll add that you should try to take any talent you like that will enhance your sneak attack. Since you're playing a chameleon and are therefore stealth-focused, Fast Stealth might be a good one.
I can't imagine not having Detect Magic at my disposal as a caster. My casters use it constantly. I don't think 3 uses a day is worth it as a rogue talent, though. Your party caster should probably recognize it as part of the role to identify what items are magical.
Finesse rogue would give her occasional help, but not much. Not sure if it'd be worth it. The talent that provides weapon focus on the other hand, might be...
She's primarily a bow-user, wielding a short sword in melee when she has to (such as whenever the Paladin goes down, which is ALL THE TIME because said paladin doesn't wear armour and still hasn't picked up her planned monk dip to compensate for that yet) and feinting for sneak attack in melee whenever possible.
Her strength is actually only slightly lower than her dex, so weapon finesse would only give her a +1 over what she's already getting in combat. And of course that would only be in melee, which is technically not her normal mode of combat anyways (my hope is that as my teammates get tougher I'll stop being forced to try and fill their shoes so often).
I hadn't considered the trap abilities at all... Chameleon takes away her trapfinding and trap sense, but I guess there isn't anything stopping me from setting traps (and the archetype actually helps my already-good stealth be even better!). Might be useful. Our main villain is an evil cleric who likes to send undead minions at us, so catching one of them in a trap would be a useful edge.
She's a charismatic rogue above all else. Bluff, diplomacy, disguise, intimidate, using wands and scrolls with UMD, feinting (when she has to)... Those are the areas she excels in. At the rest, she's average all around. No real weak stats, but nothing else she's exceedingly good at.
And in fact I just realized Minor Magic for Dancing Lights would be redundant. I hadn't realized until double-checking it now that her race (Kitsune) gives her a 3/day use of that spell as a SLA anyways. It's a new race to me, and I'd forgotten.
Hmm, well another thought I was considering was taking a few sorcerer, and then arcane trickster levels to play off her high Cha, and to learn a few key divination and illusion (our wizard's other barred school) spells that the party doesn't have much access to, but that would probably be useful for rogue-ish types.
And I know the weakness of multiclassing and prestige classes and whatnot, but we're already so un-optimized anyways that I doubt it would matter much. Heck, Arcane Trickster might even help her fare a bit better.
I like the trap talents I mentioned, but I really do have to stress.
Unless your DM is OK with you using your stealth to set up the battlefield to suit your needs pre-emptively, all Sun Tzu-like, they will be quite worthless.
If you think you'll be able to use them to set up traps and turn the environment against your foes, go for it, seems really fun. Can't imagine it working in the stereotypical dungeon crawl type game, though.
The spells are not all created equal for a rogue. (and probably not for a sorceror either).
With magic missile, you'll do almost no damage. It's useless. Mage armor can be replicated with a MW chain shirt, so that's no good either.
On the other hand, spells like Vanish and Disguise Self can break open an entire encounter. While others, like Expeditious Retreat and Shield are at least always handy to have.
If you don't want to sabotage your rogue abilities entirely, consider looking through the bard archetypes. A one level dip could do way more for you, and you can cast in light armor, and opens more class skills, and etc, etc.
I think it varies on what type of encounters we face. Our first level adventure was a free one the DM found on the internet, and was very typical dungeon-crawly. Our second was a similarly dungeon-crawly adventure, but one the DM made himself. It had far more opportunity to talk our way through. Our adventures since then have been stuff he's made himself, and have less and less typical dungeon. There's still been crawl, but not nearly as significantly as the first two adventures.
And ah yes, the Bard/Rogue plethora of class skills. I've never actually gone for it I think, just considered it. I know it can get ridiculous though. I've had characters of other class combos get close to having all skills as class skills before though, so I know what it's like.
I played a rogue with the Minor Magic talent before; my choice was the "Message" spell. It was essentially my short-range walkie-talkie which I could use to signal the rest of the party when I was scouting out ahead.
It's hard to justify using a talent for most of the zero-level wizard spells, but I got a lot of use out of this one.
I picked detect magic and exp retreat. I am a scout and I have really liked both. I think later I will choose a familiar with a feat from UC.
I can't help you with Minor Magic, but Major Magic (Gravity Bow) and Major Magic (Color Spray) can be very useful for a Rogue.
I'm betting color spray will be less-than useful by the time I get it since I stopped to go for another talent first rather than go with immediate minor magic followed by major magic.
Gravity bow though... Hmmmmmm, I like it. Especially since every wizard player I've known is generally too busy slinging fireballs and buffing the melee combatants to care about the lil' old archer rogue.