Since everyone loves polls: Best race for a rogue?

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Advantages and disadvantages for each race can be found here: http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/IWD2/races.php

When you ignore the gravy (+1 to hit goblins and hobgoblins, wow!) a deep gnome stills seems to get their money's worth for three levels lost. That is: +2 to saves, magic resistance, +4 generic armour bonus, permanent non-detection, and the ability to cast three two level spells (which is comparable to three levels invested in wizard/cleric of Mask).

 

Well, since IWD2 is the game it is, the answer is pretty much guaranteed to be either Drow or Svirfneblin. I mean, they couldn't have made the damn thing more unbalanced if they'd put an elephant riding a blue whale teetering on an ice-skating hippo in the class/race defintions .2da files.

 

Drow get spell resistance. The great advantage over Deep Gnomes, is their elven proficiency in longbows. Humans get an extra skillpt./lvl, but this is of little importance if you're making a high-INT rogue anyway. Naturally rogue is best mixed in with wizard, since you don't need a full rogue to complete the game. A full rogue would be specialized in Sneak Attacks to be competent at higher levels. If you also have a wizard character covering rogue skills, then your rogue could just dump INT, and use the 1 skill/lvl in Move Silently.

 

Imo drow's best advantage over DG is favored class: wizard. I dislike pure rogues because I hate micromanaging sneak attacks and don't find them that great anyways so a wiz/rogue is my favorite mix and Drow's excel that combo.

 

Drow with only 1 level of Rogue. That class stinks.

 

Sad too because they are quite strong in nwn2 with access to the great prestige classes that they can get. But without that they are rather weak in iwd2.

Drow rogue 1/wizx is amazing though. So much versatility and can be a great diplomat too.

 

coin:

Deep gnomes get a +2 to saves, +4 to generic AC, non-detection, and the ability to cast blur/mirror image/invisibility once per day. That's ignoring the 'gravy' (eg. bonus skill points to hide).

Klorox:

Maybe. I feel like role-playing a Rogue, though. Slipping into the shadows, stabbing the occasional back or two, sniping from a distance.

The Deep gnomes favored class is wizard: illusionist...


To be honest, I don't understand the mentality behind those who voted for drow. OK, you think magic resistance is worth a 2 ECL penalty. Great, I understand that, I might even agree. But then why not sacrifice just one more level for the Deep Gnome's generic armour bonus, innate non-detection, blur/mirror image/invisibility (the equivalent of 3 wizard levels!), as well as some other gravy which isn't essential, but I wouldn't say no to.

 

Half-Orc. The rogue's main advantage is being able to do more damage per hit than the other classes with a sneak attack. High strength is most useful for this.

 

Now that's unorthodox! But you'd only get an extra +1 to damage for each sneak attack.

 

Woops, I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I was thinking of nwn2 but dg's favored class in that is rogue I think, lol. Minor slip up


In that case DG probably is the best, although I prefer Drow because I find them cooler I guess.

 

I have a DG rogue2/illusionistX in my own party, and I know how good they are. I'm the last person to say DG is bad, but the Drow just has a bit more versatility. A small mistake in my first post btw; rogues already have the bow proficiency, so Drow race only gives them longsword proficiency.

I was actually thinking of a female drow, who takes a mix-in level of cleric later on. This will increase saves a bit, and give Heavy armour and shield proficiencies. The Drow's quick-casting Faerie Fire can mean a lot when you want to get a Sneak Attack in as well.

Spoiler

If you choose Dreadmaster of Bane, it will boost your wisdom later on too, which is a weak point of rogues.

You make an excellent argument for DG, maybe I should've voted for them...

Caradhras talked about an excellent rogue build, specialised in Sneak Attacks. It probably won't cut it in Heart of Fury, but that isn't the issue here.

Basically, you maximize Strength instead of Dexterity. You can dump INT ability, getting only 1 skill per level, for Move Silently. Then you get in a lot of Sneak Attacks with your (nearly) pure rogue, and it gets loads of additional damage from STR and Sneak Attack bonus. This build was partly in my mind when the question was raised, and the DG's -2STR doesn't work well for this character.
The loss of Dexterity isn't too bad, since this is a frontliner build (less reliance on ranged attacks), it has spell resistance if a Drow (better than DEX+Evasion), and there are few skills (just Move Silently) that would be boosted by the DEX modifier. Great benefit is that you're not restricted to Weapon Finesse feat and Small Blades either. But it is a specialized build, so complain to Caradhras if it doesn't work out. Only joking.

 

Drow get better ability bonuses than DG. -2 to str is a pain for any class since no one wan't that minimized and -4 cha is bad even when you're min maxing since you can't have less than 1 cha.
The Immunity to Sleep and Charm spells and the proficiency in large swords are useful.
The AC and saves bonus of the DG and the slightly useful bonus to hide (but the drow get a search bonus) are handy but don't make up for the worse ability scores. The invisibility is only once a day and can be replaced with a potion, but the mirror image can be a good life saver.

With all this in mind I consider the drow a slightly better rogue. I like DG:s but usually use them as monks, clerics or high AC decoys where you really use their AC bonus and ability bonuses to the fullest.

 

LMAO. Well, I had in mind taking just one Banite level to get three Commands which could be used to dish out extra sneak attacks when the chips are down (or when soloing). Still I wouldn't dump INT too much since you'll need to put a few points in Hide and Move Silently to make up for the lower DEX and the eventual suit of armour.

Reflex saves will be high anyway.

The idea behind having a high STR is making the most of the two handers which are better weapons for switching between foes in the middle of a fight. That being said I can't take credit for that build since the high STR Rogue is certainly not a creation of mine.

I'd certainly discard the DG because I like my Rogues to be strong. Drow would be nice but the level penalty is irksome in Normal Mode so I'd preferably go for Half Orc for extra STR (the reason kmonster pointed out) unless I plan on adding one Cleric level in which case I'd go for a human Rogue instead.

 

Yup, DG. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that the +3 LA isn't a real sacrifice, because it raises the levels of the rest of the party by an equivalent amount. So it's a benefit even before you get to the ridiculous DG bonuses.

Unfortunately, a single-class rogue is a pretty crappy build...

 

The optimal pure rogue is a half-orc with stats
Str-dex-con-int-wis-cha
20-18-18-14-3-1
Take proficiency in at least one damaging two-handed weapon type like axes or polearms.
14 int yields enough skill points to maximize search, disarm, lockpick, hide, move silently and pickpocket.
Since that many skillpoints aren't really needed (pickpocket is only useful at the beginning, stealth is good without spending a single point in it, you can pick all locks even if you spend only half as many skillpoints as possible, ...) you can also raise use magic device, alchemy (for envenom weapon) or any other skill you want.
Lowering int in favor of wis for a little better will saves is also possible, but +1 or +2 doesn't matter much in a d20 world if you only have to make a will save about 5 times in the whole game since protection from evil grants charm immunity. There's even a feat which does the same for this character as +4 wisdom, but no feat which grants 40 skillpoints.

You can add a level of barbarian if you can live with less skillpoints, about 1.75 less sneak attack damage and getting the thief bonus feats one level later.
You become proficient with all the damaging weapon types, faster speed is nice for scouting, more hitpoints don't hurt and heroic inspiration can increase the damage output.

If you're a ruthless powergamer who doesn't care for party balance and wants the rogue to level more slowly in order to allow the party casters to level faster take a paladin instead of a barbarian level for the 20 percent XP penalty. This build will hit harder and have more hitpoints than a drow build and even get the paladin quest bonus.

 

Is the extra +1 to damage and to-hit you'd receive from those extra 2 points of strength really that big a deal?

The barbarian level may be a good idea, especially considering Barbarian Rage gives you +4 to strength and dexterity, as well as some immunities. Barbarians are also immune to sneak attack, which is alright I suppose.

And I don't think your paladin idea would work, because rogues can't be of lawful alignment, whereas paladins must be of lawful alignment.

 

what people often forget when comparing damage types, is that a strength bonus to damage is guaranteed. Let's say you wield a +2 longsword with 18STR: The weapon deals 1d8 damage, +2 from enchantment. So in fact, the sword deals an average of 4.5 + 2 damage, of which only 3 points are guaranteed. Every two points in strength give similar results as a +1 enchantment to your weapon, giving +1 to attack bonus and damage. With 18STR, you get +4 damage, meaning that on some strikes, strength damage will be higher than that of the +2 enchanted weapon itself. Now for two-handed weapons, this difference becomes greater, since there's a x1.5 multiplier for STR damage bonus. A +2 enchanted spear would deal out 1d8+2 damage, average 6.5 and minimum 3 again, while STR bonus is 6 now.

If you installed the Ease-of-use mod component 'Additional druid shapeshifts', you'd get a half-dragon transformation with 40STR, you could cast Champion's Strength on it, and with 48STR, it would get 19x1.5=+29 strength damage on top of its already dangerous elemental 2-handed sword!!

 

+1 to hit and +1.5 to damage is always nice (especially vs bosses with 15 DR) and emphasize the thief power, the other races don't offer better bonuses for this character.

In 3E rogues can be lawful good.

 

I think we first have to ask what the goal of a pure (or near-pure) rogue is -- certainly not party optimization. Couple possibilities here:

- The player envisions a particular role, and a pure rogue build happens to fill that role best. This is a bit of stretch -- you can get plenty of skill points with just a few rogue levels; beyond that the only benefit is more sneak attack, which I don't see as very effective in IWD2.

- The player has decided, for whatever reason, that he wants a pure rogue, and is trying to make it as useful as possible (which is going to be a lot less useful than a pure sorcerer, but that's another thread).

Regardless, I think you're going to want a deep gnome for the SR and DEX bonuses, rather than a half-orc for the STR bonus.

 

The DG is not an offensive build.

A full time Rogue is meant to use sneak attacks a lot, if not there is absolutely no point in having more than 2 Rogue levels.

Because of the title of the poll we could assume that we were condidering a pure class if not then please ignore my post.