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I was thinking of playing a rogue with 18 dex and 16 int with 10s in all the other stats as a human. I plan to use my rogue talents for weapon finesse, fast stealth, a combat feat, weapon focus, and skill mastery twice. I'm only planning out to lvl 12.
My normal feats would be ones that added bonuses to skills like stealthy and skill focus.
Can this character function and contribute to the party in an effective way regardless of the campaign situation?
Well you can always contribute to situations! Just not very much sometimes, especially in combat. On the upside, they may not attack you if you can't hurt them, even if you also don't have much in the way of defences.
Not a fan of pure skill monkeys without a battle plan. Your going to see combat in the game at some point, so being pure support isn't always the best place to be in life.
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Regardless of campaign situation...no. I assume this is for PFS? Most tables can afford to have one not well optimized for combat character just fine. The skills will be a welcome boon for faction mission when co-operation is allowed. But you end up in a table with 3 bad players and your gonna regret not having something with more oomph.
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Mainly for this, know your GM. If you don't know your GM, ask them. So for your last part of the question, "regardless of the campaign situation," I would have to say no.
If you've got the kind of GM who focuses almost entirely on combat, you're going to be frustrated with your character build within the first two or three sessions. On the other hand, if they prefer roleplaying and trying to get players to be crafty, you may end up being more useful than the group's cleric or wizard.
Like Cold Napalm said, if this is for PFS I would be wary, as the specific module/scenario and rest of your party setup will determine how useful you are and how successful your group is, and that will change every session. If this is the case, I would suggest making your feats be half-and-half skills and combat. I would suggest having one of your starter feats be finesse, or weapon focus with your first rogue talent giving you finesse.
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How Useless is a Skill Monkey Rogue?
I don't know if words exist to express the depth of uselessness.
Rogues aren't even the best Skill Monkeys (that's a Bard).
No, don't do this.
Regardless of campaign situation...no. I assume this is for PFS? Most tables can afford to have one not well optimized for combat character just fine. The skills will be a welcome boon for faction mission when co-operation is allowed. But you end up in a table with 3 bad players and your gonna regret not having something with more oomph.
Usually one dead weight is more than enough. Skill monkeys can be fun, don't get me wrong, but its best to build your character to do a few things well in PFS. I've been at many tables with only one or two characters capable of combat. It isn't nearly as fun when that happens, and its not taking much away to build yourself for a few things in combat.
So no way to be creative with skills in combat I take it? I noticed the steal maneuver, does this mean that I couldn't use slight-of-hand to take things from people during combat?
Can you not get by with crossbow sniping in combat?
I'm not looking for build advice, just an evaluation. I am trying to see the viability of a pure skill monkey.
Okay, you can fire one crossbow bolt per round at 3/4 bab, that has no additional damage modifiers. No, crossbows aren't that good. Skills becoming useful are dependant on the DM, but I don't know many that ever have chandeliers hanging around to drop.
Its just not that viable unless your campaign isn't interested in combat. A bard might be able to pull it off because they can still pull out spells that buff friends and break enemies. Rogue doesn't have that option however.
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So no way to be creative with skills in combat I take it? I noticed the steal maneuver, does this mean that I couldn't use slight-of-hand to take things from people during combat?
Steal is a combat maneuver, so it uses CMB.
Otherwise, there are no creative uses for skills in a fight unless your GM is very willing to ignore large swathes of rules. If he's liable to let you do it, you should be asking him instead of us.
Can you not get by with crossbow sniping in combat?
No, sneak attack is not enough damage. You need some static mods and the ability to make multiple attacks, neither of which is possible with a crossbow.
I'm not looking for build advice, just an evaluation. I am trying to see the viability of a pure skill monkey.
No, there is no viability for a pure skill monkey. Pathfinder is a combat game, first and foremost. Skills are fun, but nobody needs to focus entirely on them. Skills just aren't that useful, ultimately, especially compared to spells.
If you want to be a good warrior but still have plenty of skills and other non-combat things to do, I'd go Ranger. If you want to be mostly support with good skills and stuff, but without being useless in combat, be a Bard. If you want to be a real "skill monkey," just be a spellcaster and obsolete all the skills.
I noticed the steal maneuver, does this mean that I couldn't use slight-of-hand to take things from people during combat?
You can steal with sleight of hand! ...provided you reach level 10 and spend an advanced talent.
Can you not get by with crossbow sniping in combat?
Not without dedication. You're a 3/4 BAB class with no class features that buff to-hit, and without the Precise Shot chain you're looking at a -8 to hit anyone who's fighting your front-liners (-4 soft cover, -4 firing into melee). And you're not getting sneak attack damage.
So how do we justify that steal uses CMB instead of sleight-of-hand? Sleight-of-hand even has DCs for stealing things from people. I'm not saying those aren't the rules, but what sort of non-meta sense do they make?
I guess I don't see why a Human Rogue with (for example) a 14 Int couldn't also be a skill monkey? You'd have 1 fewer skill point per level, but you'd have 5 more points for attributes other than Dex or Int. Why maximize your skill points at the expense of everything else?
Character concept.
So how do we justify that steal uses CMB instead of sleight-of-hand? Sleight-of-hand even has DCs for stealing things from people. I'm not saying those aren't the rules, but what sort of non-meta sense do they make?
Because the other guy can see it coming.
Sleight of Hand is for when they don't suspect anything.
Erm... Whats your concept? 14 int is still more than most people irl. 12 is already a smart guy.
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I guess I don't see why a Human Rogue with (for example) a 14 Int couldn't also be a skill monkey? You'd have 1 fewer skill point per level, but you'd have 5 more points for attributes other than Dex or Int. Why maximize your skill points at the expense of everything else?Character concept.
Your character concept is "I must have 16 Intelligence and be crappy at fighting?"
I doubt that. I bet your concept is closer to "highly skilled guy," which could be just fine with 14 Int, or even 12, since 8 base is quite a lot.
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Your character runs the same risk of being useless as most other very specialized characters. If the DM is willing to work with your character to give him problems that allow him to shine and be useful then it shouldn't be a problem.
You also don't have to be useless in combat, true you won't be throwing damage around but there are ways to use dex with combat maneuvers and you could always devote the feats needed to make a whip decentish.
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It depends on your perspective, the rogue isn't the best in combat - that honour goes to the martial classes and the spellcasting classes can for a limited period be better than anytihng else.
But what the rogue excels for extended periods is being skilled. They can use those skills an unlimited number of times each day. If those skills are used well (and with a half-decent GM) the rogue can gain various forms of intelligence such as observing from hard to access vantage points, stealing notebooks, following people, talking to shady characters etc etc. With this intelligence the party can pick and choose their encounters and plan the ones they pick to be on their terms rather than on the opponents. This allows the resources of the other party members to be used far more efficiently.
So you're sub-par in combat, but you've given the party a surprise round instead of being on the receiving end of a surprise round. You've also given the party the opportunity to initially establish initial battlefield control and that's in addition to being able to sneak attack because you're prepared. Together that's worth a lot to a good group of players.
Just be a Bard :( sadly a Bard does everything better than a rogue.
I guess I don't see why a Human Rogue with (for example) a 14 Int couldn't also be a skill monkey? You'd have 1 fewer skill point per level, but you'd have 5 more points for attributes other than Dex or Int. Why maximize your skill points at the expense of everything else?Character concept.Your character concept is "I must have 16 Intelligence and be crappy at fighting?"
I doubt that. I bet your concept is closer to "highly skilled guy," which could be just fine with 14 Int, or even 12, since 8 base is quite a lot.
Base 8 is still pretty low when your trying to do everything that I picture a rogue being able to do.
The concept is a character that is skilled. Not a martial, not a spell-caster.
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The concept is a character that is skilled. Not a martial, not a spell-caster.
We call those guys "NPCs".
Instead of looking at your high skill numbers, try to answer the question: What kind of challenges will my character be solving for the party? (without going into tautologies like "challenges requiring good skill rolls").
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The concept is a character that is skilled. Not a martial, not a spell-caster.
I recommend using a system that believes non-casters should be allowed to have useful abilities other than "hits things good with sticks".
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Usually one dead weight is more than enough. Skill monkeys can be fun, don't get me wrong, but its best to build your character to do a few things well in PFS. I've been at many tables with only one or two characters capable of combat. It isn't nearly as fun when that happens, and its not taking much away to build yourself for a few things in combat.
Shurg...
I usually have a good enough build where 1 dead weight won't even register as a blip. 2 I kinda notice. 3 and it REALLY hurts. Only time I almost fail a mission is with 3+ dead weights. Have failed a few faction missions with 2 dead weights however...but with just one, it's always been smooth sailing. Guess we may have different levels of what somebody is considered dead weight however.
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Skill ranks =/= Skill efficiency.
If you are only investing in Dex and Int, you'll be lousy with any skill not based on those ability scores.
Think of it this way:
- You'll need some Str if you plan on exploring (Climb and Swim).
- You'll need some Wis if you plan on being perceptive. Not much of a "skill monkey" rogue if you can't locate a trap. Doesn't matter how good your Disable Device skill is if you walk right into the trap (not to mention you're going to have trouble surviving one with low hit points, since you have only 10 Con).
- You'll need some Cha if you plan on contributing to social encounters (Bluff, Diplomacy, and Intimidate).
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I recently played with another player who had a skill focused rogue and I am not kidding when I say 95% of his combat contributions were the GM being generous, not realizing how much harder it should have been to do stuff, or making up stuff. He had one skill mission where he was integral. Player wise, he contributed more to the story than my tactical play style did.
I want to remind people it is much more difficult to deal sneak attack damage with a ranged weapon, especially trying to do it more than once per the same combat.
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I was thinking of playing a rogue with 18 dex and 16 int with 10s in all the other stats as a human. I plan to use my rogue talents for weapon finesse, fast stealth, a combat feat, weapon focus, and skill mastery twice. I'm only planning out to lvl 12.
OK, but there are some skills you won't be good at. I would strongly recommend diverting some of those points into Wis and Con, for several reasons:
Wis, you NEED wisdom for perception, and you have a crappy Will save.Con, you need for hit points (you WILL get hit), and for your crappy Fort save.
My normal feats would be ones that added bonuses to skills like stealthy and skill focus.
Woah! Stop right there. Skill bonuses are good, yes. But they are not, even for a skill-monkey, the be-all and end-all. You WILL need to be able to contribute in combat. It may not be part of your concept, but it's something that will come up
Relying on your sneak attack in combat is not too bad an option, but you have some issues you need to address:
1) Hitting your target - you have 3/4 BAB, and flanking will give you +2 to hit (and if you do not flank, you get no sneak attack goodness for most of the fight, so flank!). You need to boost this as much as you can with other feats.
2) Mobility - sneak attack makes you a glass canon. Dodge-Mobility-Spring Attack is a good combat that will let you get in and out of combat without getting hit (too often). If you use this on foes engaged with your friends you should contribute some substantial damage and harass the enemy nicely.
3) Rogue Talents - there are some that expand your sneak attack. Use them.
I know you want to be "the skills guy" but that's already there for a rogue, you don't have to concentrate in it to be good at it. The art of being a good rogue is in getting them to do other stuff.
Can this character function and contribute to the party in an effective way regardless of the campaign situation?
No. A "pure" skills monkey is only useful in situations where their skills come into play, and skills don't come in to play much in a fight (and fights happen a lot). A rogue who can do other stuff, he's useful to the party all the time.
A rogue who can do other stuff, he's useful to the party all the time.
Whoa now, let's not be too hasty here. Sure, he's useful compared to the "I have nothing but skill points" rogue, but he's still just a rogue.
SO what I'm getting here is that a character good at only skills is worthless.
I'm getting skill bonus feats to make for the lower attributes in some areas. He would have three levels of skills. Skills + feats + Attribute bonuses. Skills + feats. Skills + Attributes. And then Skill with only ranks.
For those calling my 'character concept' gimp role playing. I ask how do you make a skill monkey rogue that is not outclassed by a Bard who does not focus at all on skills? Ignoring all the other bard stuff. If I am going for skill monkey and not a fop, I have to do something that makes the rogue better at skills than your average bard.
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You don't.
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I was thinking of playing a rogue with 18 dex and 16 int with 10s in all the other stats as a human. I plan to use my rogue talents for weapon finesse, fast stealth, a combat feat, weapon focus, and skill mastery twice. I'm only planning out to lvl 12.
My normal feats would be ones that added bonuses to skills like stealthy and skill focus.
Can this character function and contribute to the party in an effective way regardless of the campaign situation?
It depends on the campaign and the party.
With two weapon fighting the gang up feat and agile weapons you could contribute meaningfully to combat, but would most likely want to wait until others have engaged before jumping in.
Out of combat, the skill monkey could rule the game depending on the GM and the groups play style.
One thing you have to take with a grain of salt. The optimizing and min/maxing crowd on the forums will tell you anything even one notch below "the best" is a waste of time. You don't need to be "the best", a rogue is perfectly capable of doing the job if that is what fits your character concept.
I was thinking of playing a rogue with 18 dex and 16 int with 10s in all the other stats as a human. I plan to use my rogue talents for weapon finesse, fast stealth, a combat feat, weapon focus, and skill mastery twice. I'm only planning out to lvl 12.
My normal feats would be ones that added bonuses to skills like stealthy and skill focus.
Can this character function and contribute to the party in an effective way regardless of the campaign situation?
It depends on the campaign and the party.
With two weapon fighting the gang up feat and agile weapons you could contribute meaningfully to combat, but would most likely want to wait until others have engaged before jumping in.
Out of combat, the skill monkey could rule the game depending on the GM and the groups play style.
This, it's totally viable, but requires the exact equipment and party to do effectively.
I was thinking of playing a rogue with 18 dex and 16 int with 10s in all the other stats as a human. I plan to use my rogue talents for weapon finesse, fast stealth, a combat feat, weapon focus, and skill mastery twice. I'm only planning out to lvl 12.
My normal feats would be ones that added bonuses to skills like stealthy and skill focus.
Can this character function and contribute to the party in an effective way regardless of the campaign situation?
I assmume you're shooting for 13 skill points per level? You can be a skill monkey with 8-9, and you can be a skill monkey without sinking half your feats into skill focus. I hope you know the DM's campaign style before committing to this.
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This, it's totally viable, but requires the exact equipment and party to do effectively.
Most ideas can be optimized slightly to be made viable. The tricks are making those choices without compromising your characters concept and knowing when enough is enough. You really don't need to destroy encounters single handed to have fun.
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Hi Marthkus,
My advice is to talk to your DM and if he says it may/will work, then give it a try.
Personally, I DM'd for a similar rogue in my Council of Thieves AP that I ran last year. He was easily the most memorable PC of the group, my players still fondly recall his exploits. Additionally, due to his charm and panache, he married an NPC the PC's all but fought for place in line to romance and at the end of the campaign was easily the most famous and loved of the party by the population of Westcrown.
Very Best of Luck to You and Your Rogue,
Weslocke of Phazdaliom
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You don't.
Let me amplify this: you can't. At least, not using Pathfinder as your game system, because the game is rigged against your character concept in so many ways that there really isn't any way to overcome enough of them to be viable, barring massive DM largesse (i.e., ignoring the rules).
If you want a game in which skills actually count for something, I'd very highly recommend Victory Games' "James Bond 007" game. There are no spells to make skills obsolete, and fire combat is so absurdly deadly that you end up spending most of the game using your skills to avoid it (or at least stack the deck in your favor). For the kind of gaming it sounds like you want to do, I'd be hard-pressed to think of a better engine. Just as I'd be hard-pressed to think of a worse one than Pathfinder.
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@Marthkus
Let me try another perspective of advice, because I don't think rogues are useless.
I would suggest that you need to be more clear about Skill Monkey. Another poster earlier offered that you need to know what problems that you will solve. Having lots of skills does not necessarily solve lots of problems. Just like a Full BAB character built for range does not necessarily succeed in grapple.
Let me suggest that Skills come in many categories of problem-solving:
1. Knowledges - "knowing is half the battle" as GI Joe says
2. Perception - arguably the single most important skill for any character
3. Good cop negotiations - Diplomacy, Bluff, Sense Motive
4. Bad cop negotiations (and combat feat tree) - Intimidation
5. Sneaky travel - Stealth, Climb, Swim
6. Lock & trap disabler - Disable Device
7. Magic - Spellcraft & Use Magical Device
The only category where Rogues have a significant advantage is 6. (trap disabler). Bards have Lore Master for Knowleges and Charisma is their primary spell-casting score, so most of the categories are covered. However, there's the Bard (archeologist) that gives trap disabler, so checkmate. Also, there's the ranger (trapper) that also gives trap disabler with Perception, Sneaky Travel, and full BAB, so checkmate again.
So what to do? Focus. Most Arcane (Intelligence) casters have the Knowledges and Magic categories covered. Most Charisma-casters have Good cop negotiations covered. One can debate the necessity of Bad cop negotiations and sneaky travel. So what is left: the trap disabler. The two archetypes above are generally done, if the group lacks a rogue, to get magical trap disabling, at the expense of some core class abilities.
I don't play PFS, but I monitor the online game recruitment here, and trap disablers are not popular. And if the campaign has any traps, the disabler will be very appreciated. So if you want a "character (to) function and contribute to the party in an effective way regardless of the campaign situation?", bring a trap disabler to the table. Then, how do you add to the combat effectiveness of rogue? You need to maximize the opportunity to use the sneak attack. There is a build guide for this. Don't forget to look at ninja, too for ideas.
I hope this helps and encourages you to play a rogue. Two of my four PbP (play by post) characters are trap disablers and are very well appreciated by their teams.
cheers
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As others have said, it really is a combination of two things which make the build unviable in a general sense (certainly it could work in a tailored campaign).
A) The rogue as a class is a bit behind the power curve, so to keep up, a character has to be well built to deal with the situations that come up.
B) Combat is a very large chunk of the Pathfinder game, and rogues really are not great in combat when when well designed. If they aren't designed for combat, they are at most a hit point sink, who can occasionally get lucky and deal a bit of damage. About anything else would be more useful.
Truth be told, you would be better off taking, say, a ranger and then going with your concept. With proper use of traits you can get some of the class skill holes covered, and then you can dump feats into skill focus feats like you wish. The bonus combat feats and other abilities of the ranger will make you at least viable in combat with much extra effort on your part. You would want to use the trapper archetype since that gets you one important class skill(disabled device as well as the trapfinding ability), and makes it so that you won't be upset with a 10 wisdom (as the archetype gives up spells anyway).
How Useless is a Skill Monkey Rogue?
I don't know if words exist to express the depth of uselessness.
Rogues aren't even the best Skill Monkeys (that's a Bard).
No, don't do this.
may I ask why you think Bards are better skill monkeys than rogues? I have never heard that argument before
SO what I'm getting here is that a character good at only skills is worthless.
I think "only useful in certain situations" is the correct way of phrasing this. If not, the Expert NPC class would not be an NPC class. The problem with "in certain situations" is that you will struggle in other situations.
I'm getting skill bonus feats to make for the lower attributes in some areas. He would have three levels of skills. Skills + feats + Attribute bonuses. Skills + feats. Skills + Attributes. And then Skill with only ranks.
Which is fine, but skills alone only do so much and go so far. The Skill Focus and similar feats are for when you find a way to do something awesome with just one skill, like Sense Motive combined with Snake Style.
For those calling my 'character concept' gimp role playing. I ask how do you make a skill monkey rogue that is not outclassed by a Bard who does not focus at all on skills? Ignoring all the other bard stuff. If I am going for skill monkey and not a fop, I have to do something that makes the rogue better at skills than your average bard.
You can't get better at skills than the bard; all you can get is 2 more skill ranks - everything you can do with skills, he can, and he has spells on top (and at later levels, inspire competence). However you do your character, the bard can pretty much match you (and the ranger too, come to think of it) at skills. So...don't focus just on skills.
What you need to do is focus as well on the things a Rogue can do that a bard and a ranger CANNOT do. That means using your rogue talents and sneak attack to do stuff they can't do. This is limited (as the bard and ranger have spells), but it's not impossible to do. You are the best supporting fighter, after all: your sneak attack means when you hit, it hurts. You have rogue talents and other abilities - use them.
You are not 'gimp roleplaying' but you are focussing on a concept the game is not really geared up to make shine in a class that has potential to do other stuff. It doesn't help that the rogue is a weak class, the only weaker one being the monk, and has limited potential. That said, there are some imaginative things you can do to make the rogue workable, and whichever way you look at it, your rogue will still be able to function as a rogue: sneak, scout, and disarm traps.
may I ask why you think Bards are better skill monkeys than rogues? I have never heard that argument before
Bards get many more skillpoints for free from their class features, what makes that nicer is that if they want to it throws them over the cap in knowledge skills. They also have versatile performance, which cuts down on the number of skills they need to invest in drastically. Even if you start spending points only when they open up, you still end up with effectively more skillpoints than the rogue. Add in spellcasting that actually boost many of those skills and performance.
Edit: Also the rogue is MAD and can't afford to put much in intellect, and is actually likely to dump it so he can survive. The Bard not so much.
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may I ask why you think Bards are better skill monkeys than rogues? I have never heard that argument before
Versatile Performance effectively gives them more skill ranks per level than rogues get, Bardic Knowledge is gravy, Bardic Performance ensures that they can contribute in combat without sinking a million feats into stuff like the TWF tree, Inspire Competence boosts skills further, and spellcasting gives them access to effects like Invisibility. And they can even pick up Trapfinding if they want.
What to rogues get that bards don't? They can spend their only class feature for a level on effects like "once per day you can roll two dice and take the better result on one Acrobatics check". Except bards can get that too, they just get fewer of them. Woohoooooooo.
Here are some things that rogues FAR EXCEED bards at doing.
- Disarming Traps
- Setting traps
- Alpha Strikes and single target damage.
- Avoiding Damage (via rogue talents and evasion)
-Coup de Gras (and nonlethal coup de gras with saps)
Rogues are also the awesome at Duel Weild builds and multiclassing.
If you want to multiclass a bard.... he will just suck.
I will say that bards have their own specialities and that increasing party damage might "win out" if your party has alot of physical damage being thrown around.... but don't count rogues out.
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OP, you asked if this would be a good idea, regardless of the campaign situation.
While I love rogues, the answer is no.
If you're going to fit into any campaign situation, you need to be well rounded. This build is a liability when it comes to survival and isn't going to have much to contribute in combat.
Personally, I'd drop the 18 in Dex and the 16 INT down a bit and give yourself some options with CON, a bit of STR and some CHA.
If you were playing in an intrigue-based campaign, or an urban sleuthing adventure, I'd say go for it...but this is not a stat-build in your current incarnation that I would feel comfortable bringing to any situation.