Help with Rouge/Assassin

[OXHawkXO]

What is the best split for DEX and INT?

[Sun Wukong]

Dexterity gives AB, stealth, etc... As long as you get your dexterity to 30+... Whatever else you can spare in your Intelligence is usually more than enough!

[Velaris]

There's no easy catch all answer for the dex/int split, since it depends on the kind of rogue you wish to play, and how many skill points you want for class skills, as well as non-rogue and rp skills.
If you have an idea of where you want your rogue to develop, post that as well, and ask for help from some of the expert builders here, I'm certain there's plenty of help out here for you.

*You don't NEED to have a dex of 30, so seeing "as long as you.." comments make me cringe, because that's just someone's view of what a rogue should be, and may not reflect your view.

Post your desired direction, and ask for creative input. I'm sure people will be willing to help.

[Blackman D]

it depends on how much you care about INT, assuming you are not gonna have 8 in everything else you probably want at least a 20 dex, skill points honestly are a bit besides the point if you are going high rogue, you will have plenty of skill points however INT also increases death attack DC

so if you want a decent DC then you probably want at least 20 INT also which will give you 15 + assassin level, at least 8 assassin for hips will end with a 23 DC

i have two assassins, one is AA, think the AA has a +8 dex and +6 INT and my rogue/assassin has +6/+6 i think, both with 9 assassin so they both have a 25 DC death attack, both with 19 natural INT with +3 item

[Sun Wukong]

With a dexterity ability score of 30, you get +10 to your stealth skills, +10 to your AB, 10 points of Expose Weaknes bleeding damage a round per hit, and you get more AC than you could by wearing suit of armor. So in more ways than one you can free up some encumbrance to carry other things. Not to mention that you can reach 30 dexterity with base ability score of 26 and a +4 Dexterity item, or a potion, or what not. Not to mention that you need at least 25 dexterity to get Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting, oh and Epic Dodge too, which in turn tends to be the bread and butter choices for Rogue/Assassins.

It doesn't matter what your idealized visage of a 'rogue' is, it is just a fact that you get most out of a 'Rogue/Assassin' if you aim to reach that '30+' dexterity. This is a matter of fact, and deviation of it tends to produce less than ideal results.

Thus, if you are up for a needless challenge, sure go for much lower dexterity, it is your choice after all. No one is stopping anyone from following whatever idealized visage of a 'rogue' they might possess.

Edit: And generally that means you get 26 dexterity by the ability score increase given at character level 28. If you do not, then you are likely not going to get all the high dexterity feats you could get, and in all likelyhood, should get.

And to sum it up, there is a very easy 'catch all answer' when it comes to 'Rogue/Assassins' - aim for '30+' Dexterity, and put whatever else you can, or want, into Intelligence - or any other ability.

[chad878262]

Entry level is minimum 25 DEX for PTWF since those extra APR make the enemy roll more saves (giving more chances they roll a 1). INT can be 16 if you don't mind wearing a +4 INT helm or just using your 2nd level spells to cast Fox's Cunning. That way if you mix in Invisible Blade you get the full +5 AC from INT. If you are going Duelist you can go with more INT and a bit less DEX, but you still want at least 25 and PTWF, you will just probably not go MAX DEX and 'settle' for 25 or 26 max to get your INT a little higher.

Race makes a big difference here too... A Tiefling might start at 19 DEX, 18 INT for instance without nerfing the rest of their stats too badly while a human would probably 17 DEX/16 INT, those extra 2 points means more of the humans epic feats will be taken up to ensure 25 DEX whereas the Tiefling will already be at 24 by level 20. So a Tiefling with 8 Assassin and 7 Duelist levels might actually try to end up with 26 DEX and 20 INT so that with +4 items they are at 30/24, giving them +10 AC/AB/skills from DEX and +7 AC/Damage/skill points (doubled if 5 SB) from INT.

[Flasmix]

I love Rouge.

[amber91]

Newbie here.

I can't find it now, but i thought i read a post from 1 year ago that says Dex builds (especially non-sneak) are pretty screwed in epic levels, especially against bosses due to high DR, unless they somehow have high damage output or high sneak attack.

Is that still the case? For example, I'm trying out an assassin PTWF, with potential base of +16-20 dmg per attack. Is that enough to do anything against end-game DR?

Also, does Deadly Defense work properly? Does it multiply on crit?

[chad878262]

Newbie here.

I can't find it now, but i thought i read a post from 1 year ago that says Dex builds (especially non-sneak) are pretty screwed in epic levels, especially against bosses due to high DR, unless they somehow have high damage output or high sneak attack.

Is that still the case? For example, I'm trying out an assassin PTWF, with potential base of +16-20 dmg per attack. Is that enough to do anything against end-game DR?

Also, does Deadly Defense work properly? Does it multiply on crit?

There are two issues to the post... "Do DEX builds have a tough time?" and "how will I do with my damage?"

As to the first part, it is not as bad as it was a year ago thanks to Avernus gear. Sneaks used to have to choose between AC or being able to hide, now they can still get hide/move silently increased while also having the +4 Deflection/Dodge/Natural/Armor bonuses. Not all of those slots offer +4 with hide/ms bonuses, but those that do can get up to +3 or even +4 which makes wearing a +4 w/out stealth bonuses less an issue. So whereas their AC used to be too low unless you made very specific builds, now they can get in to the 40's easily and, when needed UMD can have many sneak builds approaching or exceeding 50. The issue that does remain for rogues is their very poor Fortitude and Will saves and the fact that UMD is very dispelable. So basically wands are very important to a rogue's survival, but also are quite expensive to obtain (though in reality the cost is between 250-600 gp/use for most of them so not that expensive per use when you think about it). Having wands of silence, least mantle, lesser breach, shield, heroism, IMA, Deathward, etc. can make a rogue type builds life a bit easier.

On to damage, and yes if you are DEX you need to consider some form of added damage. You mentioned assassin, but not what else you were building around. If you have Rogue 10/A8 you are fine as you have HiPS, and 9d6 sneak dice (~31.5 damage for first flurry of attacks, which is 4 attacks when you have 10 APR via PTWF). Most players would add 6 levels of Rogue in order to gain Epic Dodge, because it makes the first attack against you each round auto-miss, which is similar to having +5 AC. If you go this route you have 6 levels remaining to play with, so you could go R16/A9/IB5, which is a sort of standard split granting INT to AC up to +5 and a couple higher BAB thanks to IB getting high progression. Another option, depending on how high you want to go with INT and what feats you can afford is to go R10/SB5/A8/D7. This build misses Epic Dodge and has 4 fewer sneak dice and no bleed damage, but gets double INT to damage, up to +7 INT to AC and elaborate parry can give up to +5 deflection AC for 30 points in the parry skill, freeing an item slot since you don't need a deflection item. The only duelist ability that requires wielding only one weapon is Precise Strike, so you do not gain the 1d6 piercing damage when dual wielding, but you do gain equivalent of up to 3 AC over the IB blade as well as up to 14 damage from INT. You also have 3 uses / day of 7 round haste. Would be great to get SB to 7 for free mobility feat, which you could do if you wanted to go SD3 instead of Assassin 8, but you specified you want Assassin. SB still gives free weapon finesse along with Insightful Strike.

Sorry, got off on some specifics there, but there are two key points with damage. If you want decent damage with a high dex build there are a few options, but they all have in common that damage needs to come from somewhere. SB5 for Insightful Strike and/or Epic Feat Combat Insight gives INT to damage, which is great because most DEX builds have synergy with INT, but not with STR. Bard can make a decent DEX build by adding ~+5 to damage through Inspire Courage. Fighter can use specialization and melee mastery to gain +8 damage to every hit. The point is you can NOT rely on Enhancement bonus and bonus damage from weapons (the most you are likely to find is 1d6 bonus damage). You need to find additional sources to get in to the 30's per hit at minimum in my opinion, unless you have an extremely high amount of patience. If you rely on sneak dice you really want Rogue 10, SB12 or Phantom (16 I think). This is to get Epic Precision for half sneak dice against crit immune enemies. Otherwise you cut yourself off from a decent portion of the server which is no fun.

If you have a specific build in mind more specific advice can be given. Even though they can be more difficult to level and play, I still highly recommend sneak builds of all kinds. I have a STR Bard, a HiPS Mage and a Gish (though he can sneak too), but I always come back to non-caster or minimal caster sneak builds because there is some fantastic RP around them and the required strategy in PvE is a lot of fun to see if you can take out 'x' boss or trick them in to leaving a chest so you can go loot it.

[Sun Wukong]

I can't find it now, but i thought i read a post from 1 year ago that says Dex builds (especially non-sneak) are pretty screwed in epic levels, especially against bosses due to high DR, unless they somehow have high damage output or high sneak attack.

If worst comes to worst, Expose Weakness bleed damage should ignore all DR.