| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
go with Half elf, small races limit your movement too much, Rogue knife master, pick daggers or Kukri's, TWF is well worth it, be sure to pump dex as you level, and pick up Pirhana strike. get any kind of invisibility device you can find. Ring of invisibility, wand of Greater invisibility etc.
get into flanking as much as possible.
pick up the rogue talents that let you sneak attack at other times, Against he Wall and Unwitting ally (IIRC), one allows you to use a wall as a flanking partner, the other allows you to use an enemy as a flanking partner. Don't worry about Crit fishing, as your prime damage is sneak attack.
Don't forget that flanking gives +2 to hit, being invisible means you go against flat footed AC, and you get another +2 to hit.
When you can add an element to your daggers, and pick up a haste item, get one of the gloves that adds element as well.
Around 10th or 11th level you should be able to dish out close to 100 damage per round. 4 or 5 attacks, at 6d8 sneak, plus 2d6 element.
if you want, Ninja is great, you pick up Greater invisibility as a class ability at 10th level. that combined with flurry of shuriken and haste is nasty. Plus you can walk through walls.
|
Normally I agree on sticking with Medium size for the speed, but for a flanking melee rogue I'll add ratfolk as a possible race suggestion. Their swarming ability is devastating and if you can't find another player to play a ratfolk, see if your DM will allow "scurrying swarmer" from the Dirty Tactics Toolbox.
Just another option to consider. We played a team of ratfolk for "Iron Gods" and it was bunches of fun for the two-weapon slayer.
Cheers!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you have others going into melee with you (hopefully), Outflank is a pretty decent feat that will increase the flanking bonus and provide extra attacks outside of your own turn.
If you want to do a bit more than just "sneak attacking skillmonkey who can deal with traps and... use daggers," you might look at an alchemist with the trap breaker and vivisectionist archetypes. Most of the functionality of the rogue, as well as extracts and a mutagen, plus some other benefits. The extracts, in particular, really add a lot of value (including invisibility and healing).
Catfolk is fine as a race choice with the alternate FCB of +1/6 of a discovery.
Why Half Elf specifically? Could Catfolk work? And Goblins have a 30 foot base speed, And halflings have an alternative racial trait that gives them 30 foot base speed too so speed isn't an issue for either of them!go with Half elf, small races limit your movement too much, Rogue knife master, pick daggers or Kukri's, TWF is well worth it, be sure to pump dex as you level, and pick up Pirhana strike. get any kind of invisibility device you can find. Ring of invisibility, wand of Greater invisibility etc.
get into flanking as much as possible.
pick up the rogue talents that let you sneak attack at other times, Against he Wall and Unwitting ally (IIRC), one allows you to use a wall as a flanking partner, the other allows you to use an enemy as a flanking partner. Don't worry about Crit fishing, as your prime damage is sneak attack.Don't forget that flanking gives +2 to hit, being invisible means you go against flat footed AC, and you get another +2 to hit.
When you can add an element to your daggers, and pick up a haste item, get one of the gloves that adds element as well.
Around 10th or 11th level you should be able to dish out close to 100 damage per round. 4 or 5 attacks, at 6d8 sneak, plus 2d6 element.
if you want, Ninja is great, you pick up Greater invisibility as a class ability at 10th level. that combined with flurry of shuriken and haste is nasty. Plus you can walk through walls.
Dex Bonus - Extra feat, 30' move, skill focus. all seem pretty nice bonuses. it's not as critical with rogues, but their favored class bonuses are pretty good for other classes. But any race that gives a dex bonus and still maintains 30' move would work. As for Catfolk, they work great, our group doesn't allow featured races, so I have little direct experience with them.
|
The big thing about the Unchained Rogue is free Weapon Finesse + 'Dex to Damage' for both main hand and offhand, which is just a massive number of early feat slots you can spend on something else.
The likely issues this sort of build will face include:
a) Being a 3/4 BAB class will put you behind the full BAB martial characters, and additional attack penalties can be very painful.
b) You'll need to keep two separate weapons enchanted, which typically means you will be 1 enhancement bonus behind (a +3 weapon is similar in cost to a pair of +2 weapons).
c) Actually getting a full attack from flanking will probably be fairly uncommon given the time it typically takes to set this sort of thing up (the more powerful your party, the more likely your chosen target is to die before you have a chance to full attack).
d) You are likely to be somewhat fragile for a front-liner.
e) You will occasionally encounter foes that are actually (Elementals) or practically (Barbarians/Rogues) immune to your sneak attack feature: If they have a DR you can't bypass as well, you are in for a very depressing fight.
ADDENDUM: I keep forgetting to mention that while the Knife Master archetype gets extra sneak attack damage with the Kukri, it doesn't actually grant proficiency with this martial weapon, so you'll probably need to invest a feat or trait to make this a decent weapon option.
Half elves have a couple of things that benefit the rogue.
The +2 DEX with no penalty to other stats allows for more flexibility. With races that get bonuses to two stats and a penalty to one you need to watch the penalty. Taking a penalty to STR not only affects your damage it also can create encumbrance issues especially for small characters. Penalties to WIS when combined with the low will save of a rogue is something that can be dangerous. A penalty to INT lowers your skill points. Penalties to CON not only lower your Fort save but also reduce your HP. CHA is usually an important stat to a rogue, especially an unchained rogue. A penalty to DEX is obviously something to avoid.
Half elves also count as both human and elf. This gives them access to game mechanics of 3 races. Besides being able to take human and elf only feats they can also choose between 3 alternate FCB instead of 1. The extra rogue talents for human would be a good choice.
Skill focus is obviously useful for a skill monkey. Putting it into stealth not only boost your stealth it sets you up for the hellcat stealth feat. Perception is another good choice for skill focus.
Keen sense is obviously valuable to a rogue and combined with skill focus and possibly alertness can give a 1st level rogue huge bonus. If do this and max out perception your bonus at 10th level will be at least +25 without any magic items or other bonuses. That may be a bit of overkill but even without alertness the bonus will be high.
Elven Immunities give you a +2-bonus vs enchantment. While that does not negate the low will save completely it does provide a significant boost vs a lot of problems.
The only racial trait that is not directly beneficial to a rogue is multitalented. But Multitalented can be swapped for Blended View to give you both low-light vision and Darkvision.
The catfolk also make good rogues but a couple of things to be aware of.
The bonus to CHA is nice, but it comes with a penalty to WIS. In addition to the will save issue Perception is based on WIS. That puts you behind on an important skill. You do get low-light vision which is good.
Cat’s luck is a once a day reroll on your strongest save. It can come in handy but how often will it make a difference. Since you must decide to use it before the roll, it does not allow you to recover from a failure. Its only real use is to make sure you don’t fail a really critical save, that you have a good chance of making anyways.
Natural Hunter gives you a bonus to 3 skills. This is a lot better than keen sight, but the bonus on survival is not that helpful. Survival is a WIS based skill that is not on you class skill list, so you are unlikely to invest anything in it.
Sprinter does not do much for a rogue. You cannot run or charge while using stealth, so that kind of limits it. But you can swap it out for climber which is a lot more useful for the rogue. Not only does that give you a +8 bonus to climb you also keep your DEX bonus to AC. This is something any rogue catfolk should take.
So, while both races can make decent rogues the half elf has some advantages over the catfolk.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My RoW game has a ratfolk Urogue4/vivisectionist alchemist4 that is a savage twf dagger (+tailblade) machine. Dex mutagen and cat's grace elixirs are ugly.
The big thing about the Unchained Rogue is free Weapon Finesse + 'Dex to Damage' for both main hand and offhand, which is just a massive number of early feat slots you can spend on something else.
The likely issues this sort of build will face include:
a) Being a 3/4 BAB class will put you behind the full BAB martial characters, and additional attack penalties can be very painful.
b) You'll need to keep two separate weapons enchanted, which typically means you will be 1 enhancement bonus behind (a +3 weapon is similar in cost to a pair of +2 weapons).
c) Actually getting a full attack from flanking will probably be fairly uncommon given the time it typically takes to set this sort of thing up (the more powerful your party, the more likely your chosen target is to die before you have a chance to full attack).
d) You are likely to be somewhat fragile for a front-liner.
e) You will occasionally encounter foes that are actually (Elementals) or practically (Barbarians/Rogues) immune to your sneak attack feature: If they have a DR you can't bypass as well, you are in for a very depressing fight.ADDENDUM: I keep forgetting to mention that while the Knife Master archetype gets extra sneak attack damage with the Kukri, it doesn't actually grant proficiency with this martial weapon, so you'll probably need to invest a feat or trait to make this a decent weapon option.
A) countered by flanking, invisibility and flat footed opponent.
B) use the gloves which grant element damage, they will affect ALL weapons you use.C) I have seen attacking from flanking being very common, depending on how resilient the GM makes the bad guys. But attacking from invisible is really your goal - +2 to hit and flat footed, and it makes you harder to hit (50/50 miss if they can actually attack the square you are in.
D) likely to have an extremely high AC (highest in the party) due to high dex, especially at low levels.
E) yes, there are things immune to precision damage, it's part of the game, just like fighters have to deal with things immune to crits.
Knife master works with daggers too, which aside from the crit multiplier, which a rogue doesn't really need, it's basically the same as the kurkri. Most rogues will stick to Daggers, unless they have a spare feat such as the free one Half Elves get.
you also pick up Evasion and improved evasion. it's pretty awesome to e able to just flat out ignore all kinds of AOE's
Two weapon fighting relies on getting a full attack. That means you cannot move more than a 5 foot step and still get the benefit of two weapon fighting. If you do not have a reliable way to get sneak attack without having to move more than a 5 foot step you will not see much use out of two weapon fighting.
From a mathematical point using two weapon fighting increases your chance of hitting most of the time. Because you have two chance to hit, two weapon fighting usually lowers the chance of you completely missing. Keep in mind that a natural 1 always misses and a natural 20 always hits. With factored in if you need a 2 – 16 to hit two weapon fighting increases your chance of hitting at least once. Depending on what you need to roll the increase is between 2.75% to 15%. If you need a 17 to hit it decreases the chance of hitting at least once by 1%, an 18 decrease it by 5.25 and a 19 decreases it by 2.5%.
As usually, the question is: What do you actually want? Sneak Attack is just the name of an ability, and unless you yell it every time your character attacks OotS-style, it's just words on a character sheet.
What is your favorite sneak attacking skill monkey who can deal with traps and locks?
If you want to play a skill monkey, you play Bard or Investigator. For everything else you're either not actually good with skills, or your character is overall garbage.
Investigator doesn't have an ability named sneak attack, but Studied Combat + Studied Strike is actually a much better (and much more flavorful) backstab or 'target their weak points'-mechanic.
If you really want to play a Rogue, the only archetype that makes it a PC class (not counting Eldritch Scoundrel because that's a Rogue in name only) is Sylvan Trickster. It gets flight, a way to not die to every fort save, and potentially even reliable sneak attacking. This archetype is basically the actual unchained Rogue, because the one in the Unchained book fixes none of the class's core issues.
Slayer can take trapfinding as a slayer talent. He can also take ranger combat styles to get two weapon fighting without needing to meet the prerequisites. They get 2 less skill points than a rogue but studied target applies some important skills. They are also a full BAB class with 2 good saves and proficiency in medium armors and martial weapons. Their sneak attack dice is less than a rogue but full BAB and studied strike more than make up for that. You can also take the feat accomplished sneak attacker to bring them to almost the same number of sneak attack dice as a rogue.
A STR based slayer can do everything you want you character to do and usually better than a rogue. So, the answer to my favorite sneak attacking, skill monkey that can deal with traps is a slayer.
The rogue's best answer to Fortitude saves is Twist Away. You end up staggered for a round, but it can be a huge bonus.
Being reduced to a single move or standard action for up to two rounds is not an answer for a poor fortitude save. To make matters worse you can still fail the save and be staggered and subject to the original effect that required the save. This is not designed to use every time you need to make a fortitude save. What it is for is for when failing the fortitude save means the character dies or is otherwise taken out of the game.
The rogue's best answer to Fortitude saves is Twist Away. You end up staggered for a round, but it can be a huge bonus.
No, the Rogue's best answer to fortitude saves is Sylvan Trickster with Greater Gift of Consumption.
There is one rogue archetype that does make them the best skill monkey in the game, but it trades away debilitating injury, trap finding, trap sense, and sneak attack.
The phantom thief’s refined education makes the character not just a skill monkey but a skill master. It allows you to choose one skill at every odd level and gain a bonus equal to half your rogue level. More importantly starting at 4th level they gain the skill unlock for that level and add half their rogue level to the number of points in the skill to determine what bonus is gained from the skill unlock.
At 4th level you gain the 5 rank skill lock with only 3 ranks in the skill. By 8th level it takes only 6 ranks to get the 10 point unlock. By 10th level it takes 10 ranks to get the 15 rank unlock, 5 to gain the 10th level unlock and a single point gives you the 5 rank unlock. At 14th level you can gain the 20th level unluck by having 13 ranks in a skill. While the lower level skill unlock may not be that good some of the higher level are very good.
I did not mention it before because this does not do what the original poster wants to do with his character. By 14th level the character could be gaining up to 6 20 rank skill unlocks.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If we are diverting from the specifics of the original request, the Swashtigator is another decent skill-monkey option:
Start with an emphasis in Dex/Int, take one level in Inspired Blade Swashbucker so you can take Fencing Grace as your initial starting feat, and take Student of Philosophy as one of your traits (unless your party has a 'face' already).
All subsequent levels should be in Empiricist Investigator.
You start as a decent melee combatant, get nearly every skill as a class skill, use Intelligence for Perception, Sense Motive, Disable Device, and nearly any social interaction by level 3, can choose to add a d6 or better to skill checks if you don't like your initial roll, and have a variety of alchemy options to boost nearly anything you want to do. At 5th level, your studied combat + studied strike features come online, boosting your combat performance significantly.
You'll still have to focus on specific skills, of course, but you should be able to cover nearly any skill gap your party might have.
If we are diverting from the specifics of the original request, the Swashtigator is another decent skill-monkey option:
Start with an emphasis in Dex/Int, take one level in Inspired Blade Swashbucker so you can take Fencing Grace as your initial starting feat, and take Student of Philosophy as one of your traits (unless your party has a 'face' already).
All subsequent levels should be in Empiricist Investigator.
I've decided the Empiricist isn't really worthwhile. Yes it makes a bunch of things key off INT, but you're already amazing at those things without them keying off INT, it's basically a waste of a class feature.
For my money the powerful archetype for Investigator is LAMPLIGHTER. The SLAs are nice, but you're really here for Ready for the Revelation. You'll end up with an Initiative modifier that rivals the Divination Wizard, and you'll have extra actions and stuff in the surprise round as well.
And if you're going Investigator you really can't do better than HALF ELF. The racial abilities are nice, but you're here for the Favoured Class Bonus . It doesn't sound like much, but it adds up. You can eventually get Inspiration to almost everything so it just adds to pretty much every roll you make. With Amazing Inspiration and Tenacious Inspiration your Inspiration will be adding ~+9 by level 13 which is just a crazy number to add to basically everything.
My favourite archetype though is GRAVEDIGGER. It's super flavourful, and some of the abilities you have access to are very strong. For this archetype you'd probably go Human or something over Half-Elf, you want more uses of Inspiration rather than higher numbers since you're using your Inspiration for other things.
Also while Swashbuckler is probably strictly better, especially at lower levels, I'm partial to 1 level of BRAWLER as an early martial dip. I think it's a strong option for any melee build, but the flexibility is also on-brand for the Investigator.
Finally, if we are going off-brand, I think the WARPRIEST makes an excellent knife-master build. I actually wasn't thinking of the sneak attack archetype, but the MOLTHUNI ARSENAL CHAPLAIN . You get d6 damage with your daggers, you add weapon training, and you have enough feats to get something like RICOCHET TOSS to take advantage of the Dagger's versatility, and you could even spec into something like IMPROVED SNAP SHOT to deny space as well. It wouldn't be a skill monkey though, nor does it get any specific trap-related abilities. But for a knife-wielding combatant it's my favourite that I've come up with.