bard+rogue character

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The main reasons I have a rogue is for the thieving abilities and ranged attacks. My bard is for talking, singing, and using magic instruments. Because my preferred wizard is a necromancer, the bard's spells (mostly enchantment and illusion, which the necromancer can't do) fill in the gaps.

I noticed that the bard and rogue have many things in common, particularly thieving and talking skills. It occurred to me that it might be possible to combine them into one character thus freeing up a party slot for another tank or caster.

Has anybody tried the bard+rogue combination? If so, did it work well or were there noticeable shortcomings? How many levels of each class did it have? Which race was it and what attributes did you start with?

 

If that's all your interested in, then practically any character with high DEX and good INT can fit the bill. A mix-in of two rogue levels would do nicely. Fill in the rest with whatever you like.

As for a rogue/bard specifically, I'd go with the above example. There shouldn't be a problem if you are sticking with ranged weapons. Sing your songs and hit 'em with the arrows.

[ February 20, 2007, 23:00: Message edited by: Acrux ]

 

From the powergaming point of view you don't need to slow your caster progression with a rogue level, the necromancer can handle the thieving skills alone.

Because of the high int modifier even 1 single point in "search" and "disable device" is enough for many traps and he will get many skillpoints.
Creating a necromancer with low dex doesn't make sense since wis and cha are useless, so opening locks shouldn't be problematic either, for scouting you don't even need skillpoints.

Diviners are far more powerful than necromancers, necromancer is one of the weakest specialist mages, you miss the powerful "chaos" and overpowered "mirror image" spells.

For mixing rogue and bard I'd start with a human rogue for the skill points, stats 10-14-16-14-4-18 and take at least 7 bard levels afterwards, you'll want to get the powerful "emotion hope" spell as fast as possible, "improved invisibility" is also a "must have" spell for the battle squares, so it might be better to wait even longer for the next rogue level.

You could even create an aasimar for 20 cha and the ability to take "mercantile background", but you'll have to keep the levels even to avoid an XP penalty.
If you have another magic-user than your necromancer this perfect diplomatic build is playable, but if you don't have someone else to cast "emotion hope" you get this powerful spell very late, "improved invisibility" and the last bard song won't even be available during the normal game.

 

I am actually playing a team (in HoF at the moment) with Bard 18 / Rogue 3, with the intention of going all the way to 27 Bard levels.

However, it is not really a roguish build. For a start, the INT is too low. I have picked a couple of skills this character masters, leaving, as kmonster says, a high INT wizard to do the rest.

But for your interest (and you asked for them anyway), here are the stats:
Human,
Start Stats: STR 10, DEX 18, CON 17, INT 3, WIS 10, CHA 18

 

As some already pointed out you would do best to start with one rogue-lvl for extra skill points ant then go all the way in another class (wizards are the best since they need high int). If you play HOF you could consider taking another rogue-lvl after you've gained lvl 9 spells.