Hello all. I am looking for ideas on an elven Rogue/CoT build. My PW is a level 30 limit, so please keep that in mind. The goal of the build is to dual wield and hopefully get epic dodge. The idea behind CoT is to improve a rogue's obvious weakness of saves. Also, please do not recommend Shadowdancer, as the PW requires 7 levels of SD taken in succession, and I don't want to do that. So, levels, stats, feats, and a 3rd class (possibly, but not required) would be helpful.
Thank you kindly!
Here's a build I found in another thread. It's designed for level 40 and it has shadowdancer levels, but since no one else has offered anything I figured I'd toss it out for you to mull over. Perhaps you could develop your desired build from this material? Regardless, it has some good beta on using CoT instead of Fighter in a rogue build. /Kaliban
(Author unknown - perhaps Emril? Lock? Cinnibar may know): "The best rogue build I ever played didn't end up having that many Rogue levels, because it was adapted from a high level Shadowdancer build. It finished at Rogue 19 / Shadowdancer 13 / CoT 8, and was a brilliant all-round character. He ended up dual wielding kukris, with a 10d6 sneak attack, Epic Dodge and all 5 ranks of Self Concealment. He also got Improved Knockdown, but that was kind of an afterthought to the build really. I think syrath will know the build I mean, I seem to remember discussing it with him a while ago.
It wasn't really possible to drop the number of Shadowdancer levels without losing a feat, since the Shadowdancer class lets you get Defensive Roll and Improved Evasion for free, allowing you to spend the Rgoue bonus feats on more interesting abilities, such as Crippling Strike and Epic Dodge.
I preferred CoT to Fighter levels when I realised that spending 2 feats to get +6 damage wasn't really that great a trade off. When you think about it, the only things you'd really need the +6 damage against are immune to sneak & crit things, which can usually be taken out with a scroll or two anyway. A bonus to saving throws was much more important to my Rogue, since saving throws are any Rogue's main weakness. There's better things to spend 2 feats on for a Rogue anyway, eg. Improved Knockdown and an extra rank of Self Concealment. I don't remember exactly how I levelled him, but here's how I'd do it now, off the top of my head.
Elf, True Neutral Str 14 Dex 18 Con 12 Wis 10 Int 14 Cha 8 I guess if you were feeling really crazy, you could lower Str to 12, Con to 10, Wis to 8 and raise Dex to 20, but I think that would taking min/maxing a little too far, especially considering you won't be able to get Weapon Finesse on your first level. Elves are the best race for Rogue characters by a mile, since they have always-on detect mode, no penalty to knockdowns, and some cool weapon proficiencies. Levelling Guide 1 - Rogue 1 - Dodge 3 - Rogue 3 - Weapon Finesse 4 - Dex +1 (->19) 6 - Rogue 6 - Mobility 8 - Dex +1 (->20) 9 - Shadowdancer 2 / Rogue 7 - Exotic Weapon Proficiency 12 - Shadowdancer 5 / Rogue 7 - Weapon Focus Kukri, Dex +1 (->21) 14 - CoT 2 / Shadowdancer 5 / Rogue 7 - 2 Weapon Fighting* 15 - CoT 3 / Shadowdancer 5 / Rogue 7 - Improved Crit Kukri 16 - CoT 4 / Shadowdancer 5 / Rogue 7 - Ambidexterity*, Dex +1 (->22) 18 - Shadowdancer 7 / CoT 4 / Rogue 7 - ITWF 20 - Rogue 8 / Shadowdancer 8 / CoT 4 - Dex +1 (->23) 21 - Shadowdancer 9 / Rogue 8 / CoT 4 - Great Dex 1 (->24) 24 - Shadowdancer 12 / Rogue 8 / CoT 4 - Dex +1, Great Dex 2 (Dex->26) 25 - Shadowdancer 13 / Rogue 8 / CoT 4 - Epic Dodge** 27 - CoT 6 / SD 13 / Rogue 8 - Great Dex 3 (Dex->27), Epic Weapon Focus Kukri* 28 - CoT 7 / SD13 / Rogue 8 - Dex +1 (->28) 30 - Rogue 10 / CoT 7 / SD 13 - Great Dex 4 (->29), Crippling Strike*** 32 - Rogue 12 / CoT 7 / SD 13 - Dex +1 (->30) 33 - Rogue 13 / CoT 7 / SD 13 - Self Concealment 1, Self Concealment 2*** 36 - Rogue 16 / CoT 7 / SD 13 - Self Concealment 3, Self Concealment 4*** 39 - CoT 8 / Rogue 18 / SD 13 - Knockdown, Improved Knockdown* 40 - Rogue 19 / CoT 8 / SD 13 - Self Concealment 5***
He gets 356 skill points in total. So he can get 40 Tumble, 42 Discipline, 41 UMD, maxed Hide and Move Silently and still have 147 left. I don't remember exactly what I did with these points, but I know I spread them around Open Lock, Disable Trap, Search, Set Trap, Lore, Appraise, Persuade and maybe Spot or Listen. I definitely didn't put any into Pick Pocket though. It just isn't worth it, people get too annoyed by it and it doesn't work half the time anyway.
But anyway, this character's main strength as sneaky type character is his Epic Dodge and Self Concealment 5. There aren't many builds that actually get both of these, it requires a lot of feats. This one manages it and still retains some Rogue like flavour, in the form of skills and 10d6 sneak attack. It also gets access to one of the cheapest attacks a Rogue / SD type can make, ie. knocking someone down from the shadows. There's truly no sneakier attack than that."
Heh, that's my Rogue / SD / CoT build. It got slated when I originally posted for not being Rogue enough, but I think it's awesome.
To adapt it for level 30 play with no SD, I'd probably go for a simple 20 Rogue / 10 CoT version. Or maybe 16 rogue / 14 CoT....hmmmm.....let's see:
To get Epic Dodge, you're going to need to take Defensive Roll and Improved Evasion as Rogue bonus feats. If you went 16 Rogue / 14 CoT you'd get 3 Rogue bonus feats, so you could take Epic Dodge when your Dex gets high enough. You'd lose 2d6 of sneak attacks but get +2 to all saves and few more HP. Both level distributions actually get the sasme amount of feats, but from different sources.
There's no point going for Self Concealment on a level 30 world; syrath has shown in the past that you can't start taking SC feats before level 30 anyway.
Ah, Herbie Shimmer! Sorry for not giving proper credit.
Funny thing about this build - when I was building it in Novice to Epic mod last night, I couldn't take the dual-wielding feats on the CoT levels (which is how I believe you have it written).
But I played around with the levels and got it all to work out like this:
Edit for stats: AC 29 HP 265 BA 26 AB: 38/33/28/23 & 38/33 Fort Save: 24 Reflex Save: 41 Will Save: 20
Kaliban
Edited By Kaliban99 on 11/12/04 14:34
A good way to find a build using a specific class as well is in the index on the builds forum, hit ctrl-f and type one of the classes you want to use. Then just keep hitting find next until you see one listing all the classes you want. If that one doesn't suit you then keep looking. It's part of the reason for putting the classes in the titles of your build posts. _________________ Come visit the Epic Builders Guild for all the character info you could ever want or need: Click Here
Quote: Posted 11/12/04 18:05:32 (GMT) -- Emrill
It's part of the reason for putting the classes in the titles of your build posts.
And what a brilliant idea that was! Some genius must have thought of that
Kaliban
Would adding 1 level of ranger make sense to get the two-weapon fighting feats for free? Thanks for all the help folks.
Quote: Posted 11/12/04 18:45:41 (GMT) -- Gallamar
Would adding 1 level of ranger make sense to get the two-weapon fighting feats for free? Thanks for all the help folks.
I would say no, because you get a watered down version of the two weapon fighting feats. It's not until Ranger level 9 that you get the Ranger equivalent of Imp. Two Weapon fighting. And you can't take the feat Imp. Two Wpn Fighting off of the Ranger Dual Wield feat. So if you wanted the extra off-hand attack that Imp. Two Wpn Fighting gives, you would still need to take Ambie, and Two Wpn Fighting regardless.
I think everyone would agree that if you're going for a dual wield it is mandatory to take Imp. Two Wpn Fighting for the second off-hand attack.
Rangers don't get the true feats (Ambidex, Two Wpn Fighting, Imp. Two Wpn fighting), they get a kind of morphed version.
Perhaps you should list what feats you think you'd like in your level 30 build? Then people can toss some builds together for you.
Hope that's clear.
Kaliban
Okay, here's something I just built. The leveling may not be the most effective so hopefully some others will tweak/critique this. However, it does produce a character that I believe meets your needs.
Elf, Alignment any non-evil Str 14 Dex 18 (26) Con 12 Int 14 Wis 10 Cha 8
