Rogue Perk Masterthread

[Caddies]

I was simply going to bump the last thread but then remembered there are two, and both are fairly convoluted with tangental bickering.

What I've done is gone through both threads and collated what I thought to be were the best suggestions for some balanced Rogue buffs to lend a little mechanical credibility to a class which, at least IMO, is undoubtedly the weakest pure class on EFU (especially in light of recent buffs to wizards).

So;

Hardcoded Class Bonuses
Level 7: +4 Hide/MS and 10% movement speed increase in city areas
Level 8: Slippery Mind feat, +4 Spot/Listen in city areas
Level 9: 20% movement speed increase in city areas

Specialist Rogue Perks

These become unlocked at level six and are intended to customize your rogue.

TRAPSMITH
Traps are art, and you're a budding connoisseur. Your intimate study of traps means you're becoming increasingly proficient with not only their creation but also skillfull methods of detecting, setting and distributing them...
[+4 Disable Trap, +3 Set Trap, Spawn Trap:-

• Every reset, a L6-7 rogue will spawn an average trap in their inventory.
• A L8-9 rogue will spawn a strong trap in their inventory.
• A L10+ rogue will spawn a deadly trap in their inventory.

** Max of four self-made traps at a time, trap type is random.]

GUILDMASTER
Whether criminal or mercantile, you lead a guild. Through intimdation  and guile, you've come into a reliable income with which to help expand  your guild's influence...
[+3 Intimidate, +3 Bluff, 10 gold/hour wage]

MASTER DUELIST
You have dedicated yourself to the art of dueling, leaving brawls to the petty thugs...
[-1 AB, +6 Parry, +3 Taunt, +2 Tumble, Dodge Feat, Opportunist feat]

SPYMASTER
You're at the top of an elaborate chain of spies and infiltrators, nothing in the city escapes you...
[+2 search, +3 Spot, +4 Listen, ability to craft rumors which NPCs repeat]

VETERAN THIEF
Drawn to the thrill and danger of thievery like a moth to the flame, you live and breathe larceny in all its glorious forms. From pickpocketing to banditry to elaborate heists, you've been on plenty of jobs and mingled with plenty of seedy people...
[+10 Pickpocket, +3 Disable Trap, +5 Open Lock, access to a special rogue shop?]

ENGINEER
Through natural aptitude and diligent study of the physical world, you've mastered the mechanical domain. Whether its siege weaponry or golem construction, you're the man in demand...
[+3 UMD, +10 EFUSS Engineering/Masonry skills, +2 AB vs Constructs, +2d6 sneak attack vs Constructs]

POLITICIAN
Politics isn't what you know, its who you know. You appreciate the social nuances that drive political life, and have made a point of ingratiating yourself into high society...
[-1 AB, +3 Bluff, +3 Persuade, free Patricianship]

TREASURE HUNTER
You've searched high and low for Ymph's greatest treasures. You're out  to strike it rich, and you're certain that the motherload is just under  the next rock. Traps, locks, puzzles, strange artifacts - none of these things will keep you from treasure hunting glory...
[+3 Search, +1 Spot, +2 Lore, +1 Open Lock, +2 Disable Trap, +2 UMD, Skill Mastery feat]

THUG/ENFORCER
You don't take guff from nobody, and when it comes to blood, you're the man for the job...
[WF: Club, WS: Club, +20 HP, +3 Intimidate, +2 Taunt, Opportunist feat, Dirty Fighting feat, -50 Hide/MS]

MAGEKILLER
 You specialize in the removal of arcane pests, learning more and more of their tricks of survival after every encounter...
[+10 Spellcraft, +2 saves vs mind affecting, +3 UMD]

ESPIONAGE EXPERT
You're a finely tuned spy, but your concentration on digging for clues  (or keeping others from doing so) has made you a less capable fighter  when things turn sour...
[+3 Hide/MS, +2 Listen, +2 Spot and -1 AB]

SWASHBUCKLER
You're a free spirit who rides the high seas, meeting the dangers of a mariner's life with a sharp cutlass and a quick wit...
[WF: Scimitar, WS: Scimitar, Improved Critical: Scimitar,+1 parry per/level, Blinding Speed once/day, -50 Hide/MS/UMD, no sneak attack]

[Dr Dragon]

These are some good ideas however except the following.

1 Politicians getting Patrician for free. This makes little to no sense at all.

2 Guildmasters getting a salary....unless said guild masters are part of a faction it makes no sense they would be getting a salary out of thin air and this would be really unbalanced for guild master rogues in DM factions.

[Caddies]

A rogue with the Guildmaster perk obviously wouldn't be in a DM faction, he'd be running his own guild. The wage signifies a small income from said guild, and functions as an excellent method to expand your guild by hiring more people.

Don't understand your qualms with the Politician perk either.

[Capricious]

The only thing I see about the free Patricianship for the Politician perk is that it doesn't acknowledge that there are other political bodies on the PW. That's something I feel doesn't get enough emphasis, there are a variety of DM factions each could use politicians, but Patricianship implies a certain loyalty to the Duchy.

[Thegoldflows]

I'd probably remove the ab penalty from espionage expert and duelist myself and simply require the pure rogue levels for it to be taken. Their AB is rather low as it is for a class that is semi-required to fight a lot, especially as a duelist ;)

So long as these were put in with the requirement mentioned, 6 rogue levels, then they would work well.

[AKMatt]

Swashbucklers with rapiers would be cool, too.

[GoblinSapper]

Trapsmith: Yes
 
Guildmaster: Yes? Need to actually lead a PC faction imo.
 
Duelist: yes
 
Spymaster: yes
 
Veteran Thief: Yes
 
Engineer: Yes
 
Politician: Yes, but make it Patricianship at a reduced cost, 1/2 or 1/3rd
 
Treasure Hunter: Yes
 
Thug: The Weapon feats feel slightly imba..
 
Mage Killer: Yes
 
Espionage Expert: Yes
 
Swashbuckler: See Thug

[GoblinSapper]

How many rogue lvls would be required for this, anyway? I happen to have an engineer build in mind thats 9 rogue/1 fighter.. >_>

[Wrexsoul]

Would you simply be able to pick these without further ado when reaching level six, or would they require something else? They are great suggestions, and a few of them I see no problem with handing out indiscriminately, but some of them carry some pretty strong RP benefits that other people have to really work for (+10 EFUSS skills O_o, patricianship, crafting rumours with NPCs, stand out specifically). It would feel pretty lame if people could just grind quests and get such elusive and powerful abilities. Otherwise; Good thread!

[GoblinSapper]

Make Guildmaster, Engineer, Swashbuckler, and Thug into custom PRC's like Bloodmage?

[Caddies]

PRCs too complicated from what little I understand of them. Its why we don't have more.

I guess you could rename the Politician perk but I sort of envisioned it as a headstart down the path toward Lord/Lady.

[GoblinSapper]

Well, like I said, make it a patrician discount instead of free, even reduce it to just 1,000 gold, unless thats too complicated. a free 4000 gold title is a pretty big boost.

[AKMatt]

I don't see the big problem with free patricianship.  Yes, it's very good, but to be honest, there's nothing wrong with seeing more patricians who didn't have to spend inordinate time questing or manning the merchant stalls to get their title.  I like this one a lot, actually.  It's not as if it's terribly difficult for people to get Patricianship with the current price.  This allows a PC to be political without being: a) a wizard or sorc who invises through quests to stockpile gold for a title, b) a merchant c) a successful bounty hunter.

A veteran thief is not going to have much difficulty getting 4,000 gold to become a patrician.

The thug and swashbuckler bonuses both seem like they offer plenty in the way of quest-storm to 4k gold potential, as well.


I think they're all pretty fair and balanced.  Remember, these are for pure rogues, to promote people playing pure rogues, basically.  Thug and swashbuckler seem like excellent ways to replace the fighter/rogue or barbarian/rogue builds that would usually accompany such concepts with a more reasonable pure rogue build.  The nice thing is that the introduction of these perks doesn't preclude use of a ftr/rog or barb/rog build if that really does describe your character better, but it presents a mechanically viable alternative in the event that such multiclasses don't aptly represent your concept.

These are all pretty great ideas, and I think the server would benefit from an implementation of them as-is.

[Egon the Monkey]

First up, these are awesome and I'd have probably built Alvin as a Rogue if Engineer was an option. Thug is pretty much the perfect Docks Goon option too. Trapsmith looks nice for removing the problem of having to spam certain quests to renew your supply of traps, and Guildmaster should be great for dishing out bribes and payoffs without turning your puppet master into a quest smasher all the time. Similarly for Politician which represents "off camera" schmoozing of a Noble House or high-level functionary to grant you status.

Out of all the "frontline" perks there Thug seems like the one that's most balanced. You gain some HP to let you stay in the fray and more straight up damage with a flavourful weapon, but lose stealth. Swashbuckler  resembles a weak version of a L8 pure Fighter. You trade the three most useful rogue abilities (Stealth, UMD, Sneak Attack) for a Fighter-style feat loadout without the Hitpoints or proficiencies, without the AB and without Taunt to make up for that. Also you'll need to be STR based with that perk and take martial weapons and likely Shield prof. I think most PCs would rather go 4 fighter/X rogue to much the same effect, and keep access to UMD and sneaks.

Mage Killer is more powerful than it looks by a long way, turning you into something close to a Monk with Sneak Attack. 10 Spellcraft= +2 spell saves on class that already has Reflex  and Evasion. With that and Slippery Mind at 7 you have +4 even vs the Rogue weakness of, mind spells and a re-roll.

Duelist, you lose AB, which is pretty bad, since the concept would be going toe to toe with another PC. It could use a discipline boost, Duelists shouldn't get KDed and disarmed easily. Even Swashbuckler beats it for dueling as that has massive parry bonuses and weapon feats that let you output more face-to-face damage.

Suggestions:

•  -50 H/MS on duelist, no AB loss. +3 Discipline on Swashbuckler, +1 Discipline/level on Duelist.
• Don't take UMD away from Swashbuckler, and give them WF, Spec and Impcrit: Rapier too. Give the class +5 EFUSS Sailing. Give them -5 on Search/Set/Disable trap as you don't use many traps aboard ship.
• Give Duelist the ranger Dual Wield feat maybe for main-gauche fighting, or Medium Armor prof for chainshirts? If the idea is it can take on a full BAB class in an unbuffed duel, it needs some more oomph as you don't get many Sneak Attacks in a fair spar.
• Stick some kind of combat penalty on Guildmaster, or every powerquester will use the wage to fill the gap between quests.
• Rename Politician To "RwGasm" ;).

Finally, several of the perks feel like they cover similar ground (Espionage expert/spymaster/politician for example) but there's nothing for rogues wanting to focus in ranged combat beyond 'Sneak Attack Delivery With Any +1 AB Weapon', or having a chance vs undead. Both are areas where a Rogue Perk would open up these to concepts more. So I stuck a couple ideas down based on the feat/bonus selection from some of the posted ones.

Marksman
Shoot an apple off a boy's head with your crossbow? You can do that blindfold! Fighting up close really isn't your forte though, and you resent being seen as some petty thief just because you're a good shot.
[-1 AB. Weapon Spec, Improved Critical and Epic Weapon Focus (Light and Heavy Crossbows), Rapid Reload, -50 Open Lock, -50 Pick Pocket]
Epic Weapon Focus as it's +2 AB. -1 AB overall means you have +1 with a crossbow but -1 with any other weapon. It's a tradeoff, especially as you can't rapidshoot a crossbow for more sneaks.

Tomb Raider
Dusty tombs just feel like home to you. Be it stealing rings off the fingers of the dead or the righteous removal of necromancers, you practically live down there. It can't be good for you, all that time alone with the dead's sent you a bit strange.
 [-2 CHA. +2 Disease Saves, +2 Death Saves, +2 Negative Saves. 2d6 Sneak Attack vs Undead, +2 AB vs Undead. +10 EFUSS Archaeology.]

[Wrexsoul]

As I touched upon in my post earlier, I am curious about the reasoning behind the heavy bonuses to EFUSS skills in this. Firstly, is the intent that these bonuses should let you surpass the 10 point cap, or are they just for people who haven't put points in the skills normally?

I was under the impression that EFUSS is a system that would let you customize your character with flavourful and roleplay-wise powerful personal skills, using a limited number of points to specialize in a select few areas. I'm not sure I like the idea of feats suddenly giving rogues instant mastery without any dedication in these skills. I am guessing these points would not let you exceed the 10 point cap (since that is something that is rewarded only after serious dedication, by DMs), but even so, some of these suggestions seem really overpowered, EFUSS wise. I mean, getting two skills instantly maxed for free where most characters have only two or three skills maxed in total even at higher levels?

EFUSS is supposed to be a choice; You become a skilled archaeologist and swimmer at the expense of not being a fantastic sailor or acrobat. These perks, with the intent of letting you specialize, suddenly seem to let you generalize instead. If you are a character supposed to be a specialist of masonry and engineering, you would have gotten those EFUSS skills anyway. So the only thing that perk does is enabling you to choose -other- EFUSS skills that have nothing to do with your specialization.

Lastly, I thought the intent for this was to give pure rogues some -mechanical- aid; They are already quite strong and versatile in the roleplaying department with their overwhelming load of class skills and skill points, and multitude of justifiable roles.