Alright so I'm playing this Archeologist in an urban campaign. My thing is I'm not too familiar with all the rogue talents in practice. So, honorable sages of the messageboards, can you help me? What Rogue Talents are Good, Bad, and Ugly?
Trap Spotter is good for an Archeologist as it gives him an automatic check for traps just by coming within 10 feet of it.
Fast Stealth is good for sneaking around without having to move at half speed. This works really well with Expeditious Retreat.
Terrain Mastery give you a favored terrain like a ranger. Underground and Urban would be good choices. You get a +2 bonus to Initiative, Perception, Stealth and Survival when in the terrain. If you take both the first terrains bonus increases to +4.
Follow Clues lets you track using Perception instead of survival.
Combat Trick is always good, Favored Terrain can be good/abused, depending on who you ask.
Alright liking the advice so far. Anyone know of any "trap" options to look out for that look good on paper but are pretty worthless in practice?
I'm a huge fan of Offensive Defense (not PFS legal, I believe) and of Resiliency, which can absolutely save your PC's life.
I am not big on urban environments but Fast Tumble and Rogue Crawl can be useful about everywhere. As for what is PFS legal, well I care about as much for the PFS as I did for the RPGA, notta lotta.
Most of the sneak attack talents are not worth it. Especially powerful sneak, but you are an Archeologist so don't have a sneak attack anyways. I would also avoid the talents that give you a feat. For a rogue they may not be so bad but you have a lot fewer talents then a rogue and you should use them to get things that you would not otherwise be able to get.
Also what is your characters focus. You are an Archeologist Bard but do you concentrate more on social skills or the stealth and discovery skills?
I'm filling the sneak/thief position in the party. I also have the best perception and stealth score, and outside of that I focus on spells and social skills (with 18 charisma) and archery (16 str and Dex) with a touch of spear use. we rolled for stats, and I got 16, 16, 16, 14, 14, 13 . The lack of an 18 really hurts but the wide dispersment of stats lets me fill in for any position.
EDIT: So in summary, I'm primarily a skill monkey, and in combat i focus on buffs, Damage support, and Crowd control.
Trap Spotter is good for an Archeologist as it gives him an automatic check for traps just by coming within 10 feet of it.
Fast Stealth is good for sneaking around without having to move at half speed. This works really well with Expeditious Retreat.
Trap Spotter & Fast Stealth are my favorite non-combat talents.
Trap Spotter puts the burden of tracking traps on the GM rather than the player, avoiding the delay and distraction of saying "I check for traps" over and over.
Fast Stealth allows you to use stealth for the venerable "scout ahead" task. Without Fast Stealth, half the things you want to use stealth for are impossible or impractical.
If you're the sneak in the party, definitely grab Fast Stealth. At 12th level or higher, Hide in Plain Sight.
If you want to boost your trapperfindery goodness, Trap Spotter and Canny Observer.
The rest depends a lot on concept and campaign and what you want to get out of it. I mean, guileful polyglot may appear useless to many characters, but if you're an archeologist translating old documents or communicating with a lost tribe, it could damn well come in handy.
If there are many traps worth it and playing a halfling, i would even go into the halfling prestige class halfling oportunist, you get trapspotter to 20 feet then. That is really awesome.
You don't have sneak attack (I assume), which takes some off the table.
I wrote this up a long time ago, you may find it useful.
Combat Trick is always good, as are any of the specific feat-granting talents/tricks if you want them.
Wall Climber (ninja trick) is great if you lack a means of flight. I also like Undetected Sabotage, but that would only be helpful in some games. It goes well w/ the next pair, though.
Cunning Trigger + Quick Trapsmith could be a lot of fun with the right DM/group where you can use them to good effect.
For Advanced Talents/Tricks, there's Opportunist and Slippery Mind. And...not much else. Assasinate ninja trick can be nice, most of the others cost ki. And there's always Feat.
The magic-granting talents and skill mastery are much less useful to you because you're a bard and get that stuff anyway.