Suggestions for Rogue

[Gromph]

I have been hearing for quite some time that people don't like playing as Rogues because they are hard to play as because they are the jack of all trades not specifying in blowing up enemies with fireballs or able to cleave through hordes of enemies using a toothpick. KM told me to come up with some ideas, and I don't know if you guys already incorporated these or already discussed them (quite frankly, I wouldn't want to go through this PW as a Rogue, would take too long) so I will just list them off.

1. Use Magic Device could lower the ILR for items that rogues want to use. ( I don't know if the ILR code can be changed but just an idea ) This shouldn't be too big of a bonus ( say they count as "one level" higher per 5 ranks? ) or it could lead to over powered rogues.

2. Use Magic Device could help with wizard-specific items like Ioun Stones ( Don't know if this is already done ).

3. Allow quest conversations to have extra options for Rogues (or other classes) with high ranks in Persuade or Bluff to get some extra gold or even XP.

4. Quests should try to have extra ways around the problems for those who choose the stealthy approach (but should still award same amount of XP). I know this is a big leap as far as scripting goes, but it could also be used for DM quests too.

5. More rogue-specific items such as a Poison Making Kit. Poisons are OK but I think it could add a little more edge to the rogue's combat abilities if he could use powerful poisons such as black lotus extract and maybe poisons that can lower target's INT and WIS for spell-casters.

6. From what I could remember from the 3rd edition books, I thought the feat Opportunist allowed the rogue to add his sneak attack dmg to his AoO. I don't know if you can change this if it is hard coded into NWN but just a thought. This could give Rogue's more of an edge in combat then fighters in extreme situations.

7. Give XP for disarming traps and unlocking doors? But I can also see this as being exploited for cheap XP.

8. Make a few traps and locked doors in dungeons have a bit higher DC's that maybe normal classes with open lock and disable device skills as cross classed can't disable. Having to waste spells to blow open the door or using your allies as fodder could make having Rogue's in parties more of an asset.

9. Give them a BAB of a fighter and learn spells as a sorc. They could also have access to Self-Concealment feat at lvl 1. Also the sneak attack should be every level.

10. The above one is a joke ;D

Thats about it. Dunno if it helped at all, I just feel that the Rogue is a great asset to parties, not actually soloing. But maybe we will see more Rogue action when we go public cause we could have parties then. I usually play the swashbucklin' rogue so can't really help with the RPing, sucking a** to the NPC's for their own gains rogue.

[Sammi]

Well, I know that I am making an attempt to allow rogues and bards more opportunities for strategizing and sneaking. Stuff like locked doors, weak yet important enemies (nobles and cultists, mostly) which need to be killed with the utmost silence or pick-pocketed to accomplish stuff.

[DespondentSeraph]

*digs around in his pocket for a few seconds... pulls forth from it the mighty two pennies and tosses them into the hat*

A side idea as i am playing... can we make sure that the extremely difficult chest/doors that the rogues have to open have something worth while in them/behind them. I recently did everything in my power to get my character able to open a chest (DC was only like 28, but still) and it revealed all of a ?!?copper necklace?!? I mean, whats that... who in their right mind would have that much security on that? Unless it was a heirloom of course.

Just food for thought

*returns to his mushroom-like existance*

[Dolomel]

I agree here, I would like to see more opportunities for roleplay for the rogues. Persuading merchants and nobles, backstabbing behind the inn, you know, thieves things.

While were at it, the quests should be the more elaborate possible, I mean that they should have different ways possible to be solved. Keep in mind that some players are:
-Barbarians
-Paladins
-Rogues
-Wizards
-EVIL
-GOOD
-Scheming char
-Acting char
- And fighting is not the ONLY way around a problem...


Also, I say we should give xp for unlocked things and pick pockets. it could be ''Rogue XP'' (XP is stored aside of the Character XP and we could set a Buy-skills-by-points-style thing)... I Mean, to gain one pick pocket skill, you would have to have 1000 Rogue XP (I repeat, the xp would be stored aside of the char overall xp)

Sounds good no?

[DespondentSeraph]

I definately agree with the idea of side XP but for any character and/or class doing something that is close to their personal self. Or else everyone would want to be a rogue just for the extra xp.

I dont know how hard of a job that would put on Ima to do the scripting for that. I am having a huge brain fart over what kind of things the other classes. If i can come up with some, i'll add em on.

[Ima Dufus]

Sorry, I'm a bit pressed for time so I can't go into some of the new proposed things, but I'll quickly respond to how some of the points relate to how our PW works (compared to normal NWN).

First off...

quite frankly, I wouldn't want to go through this PW as a Rogue, would take too long

You will probably find it isn't as bad as you think. OK, it will probably take a bit longer than a barbarian powerhouse would, but it is quite doable. I have a friend who likes playing rogues through this PW and he hasn't had any real problems. And in some ways they are actually very powerful (as long as you play them like a rogue, and not like a fighter or wizard - remember, line-of-sight is your friend).

1. Use Magic Device could lower the ILR for items that rogues want to use. ( I don't know if the ILR code can be changed but just an idea )

Sorry, can't be done. ILR stuff is hard-coded.

2. Use Magic Device could help with wizard-specific items like Ioun Stones ( Don't know if this is already done ).

UMD does indeed help with Ioun Stones, as well as with the Necromancers Staff and wizard spell scrolls (in the sense that the higher your UMD the higher your effective casting level).

3. Allow quest conversations to have extra options for Rogues (or other classes) with high ranks in Persuade or Bluff to get some extra gold or even XP.

That's all nice in theory, but unfortunately at the moment we don't really have time to add in all those conversation options. Hopefully later after the launch we will have some time to go back and flesh out some things.

As for the gaining XP bit, I can't speak for others but I personally don't like the idea too much (at least not as a general "you used your bluff skill, you get 100 XP" thing). I think the usefullness of those skills should be in opening up options that aren't otherwise available (such as finishing a quest without combat), not as a means of gaining more XP. However, since you will presumably gain XP at the end of the quest, you can kinda think of it as getting XP for using the skill, it just happens to be XP you would otherwise get by some other method such as combat. So for this example you get the same XP but at no risk, which I think is a much nicer way of handling it.

4. Quests should try to have extra ways around the problems for those who choose the stealthy approach (but should still award same amount of XP). I know this is a big leap as far as scripting goes, but it could also be used for DM quests too.

This relates to what I was getting at above, and is the reason I keep suggesting we set the combat XP to 0.

If we make all XP "quest XP", and not combat XP, then you will advance by completing plots, not killing creatures. If you use some other set of skills to complete the mission instead of just slaughtering everything then you get the exact same XP. So if you use stealth to sneak past the big bad boss, open locks and remove traps to get into their treasure room, and then make off with the Great Golden Ring of Zeb, you will be rewarded the same as the barbarian who ploughs into the boss, over the trap, and through the door. In these cases each PC is using their set of skills to achieve the same goal, and should be rewarded equally. At least that is my opinion.

Of course the hard bit is making sure that there are enough different ways of doing each bit of a quest. This isn't always possible, so there will always be certain quests that are more easily done by one PC than another. For example, the zombie ship quest in Port Kir is a dawdle for anyone with a Necromancers Staff. But hopefully it will average out over many quests. And this disparity actually isn't a bad thing, it means that players might want to put a little bit of thought into which quests are easier for their characters, and leave the harder ones till later (or with a party, or never). Hopefully all of this will improve once we have a few more quests so players can be a bit pickier.

5. More rogue-specific items such as a Poison Making Kit.

Once we have a crafting system in place rogues will be able to make poisons. Whether we add more types or not depends on how much time I get.

6. From what I could remember from the 3rd edition books, I thought the feat Opportunist allowed the rogue to add his sneak attack dmg to his AoO. I don't know if you can change this if it is hard coded into NWN but just a thought.

No, there is no way of telling if an attack is an AoO or not.

7. Give XP for disarming traps and unlocking doors? But I can also see this as being exploited for cheap XP.

I've mostly covered my thoughts on this above. But one last thing...

One of the goals when I designed our scripts was to try to award as equal as possible XP (and gold and items) to all members of the same party. This is because (in theory) all party members are doing their best to achieve the goals of the party. So it isn't really fair to penalize one player over another just because their set of skills aren't called into use as much. They are presumably still doing their best.

If we started to try to measure a players contribution to their party via skills and such, we just open up a huge can of worms. We would then have to do this for all character classes, and it is in fact impossible to do that in most cases (you need an intelligence to determine some of those things, which a computer is not). Easier and better to just assume everyone is contributing where they can and award things evenly. If this isn't the case and one player is just sitting back in town and sponging XP or whatever, then it is up to the party to deal with it if they want to (such as removing them from the party).

8. Make a few traps and locked doors in dungeons have a bit higher DC's that maybe normal classes with open lock and disable device skills as cross classed can't disable. Having to waste spells to blow open the door or using your allies as fodder could make having Rogue's in parties more of an asset.

I've tried to set some higher DC locks and traps whenever I can remember to. But in most cases things are just painted down and unmodified, so they are at the default values. In a lot of cases these are woefully low DC. Still, as a counter-example, my barbarian character can't really open any locks or disarm any traps, even the really low DC ones. He has to just hit the traps and hope they don't kill him (the poison gas traps are the worst), and use a Chime Of Opening when he needs to open something. So your rogue skills are useful.

Also, you may not be aware that bashing open containers runs the risk of destroying the items inside. So even though my barbarian can very easily break things open in no time he doesn't do so (thus the Chime Of Opening). Doors are less of an issue at the moment, but when I get time I will change the AI so that bashing doors alerts nearby enemies, making that less than desireable as well.

Thats about it. Dunno if it helped at all, I just feel that the Rogue is a great asset to parties, not actually soloing.

The goal of this PW is to make ALL classes great assets to parties, and not so good soloing. I think in most cases we have succeeded, though fighter types still have a bit of an easier time of it solo. So still not perfect, but a LOT more balanced than normal. At least that's my opinion, if you think otherwise after trying a few classes then let me know.

Well, I know that I am making an attempt to allow rogues and bards more opportunities for strategizing and sneaking. Stuff like locked doors, weak yet important enemies (nobles and cultists, mostly) which need to be killed with the utmost silence or pick-pocketed to accomplish stuff.

We are definitely missing quests aimed more towards the rogue types. We want to add them (along with some thieves guilds), but there are other things to finish first. So if anyone wants to see this sooner rather than later then PM me or Knightmare and let us know how you can help.

A side idea as i am playing... can we make sure that the extremely difficult chest/doors that the rogues have to open have something worth while in them/behind them.

Unfortunately that is easier said than done. You would need to completely rewrite the random treasure generator (which is several thousand lines of code). At the moment it is just "heavily modified". Also, most treasure is generated when you open the container, and by this stage the lock and the trap are gone and there is no way of telling they ever existed - although actually I can think of a way of doing that by using the info I save to restore areas (but it would still require a complete rewrite to take advantage of this info).

Also, at the moment, treasure is randomly removed when you are in a party of less than 3 (or maybe 4, can't remember), in an effort to scale treasure to party size. So you will often find completely empty chests when soloing. This was the quickest and easiest way to handle this, and averages out in the long run. Still it is annoying to find empty chests (particularly if they are a boss chest), so it would be best to handle this differently. But it is a big job and not a high priority at the moment. So sorry, this is unlikely to change anytime soon.

I definately agree with the idea of side XP but for any character and/or class doing something that is close to their personal self. Or else everyone would want to be a rogue just for the extra xp.

I dont know how hard of a job that would put on Ima to do the scripting for that.

It would be a huge job, and in some cases an impossible one. And as I said above, I personally don't like the idea. So I doubt I will be implementing any of this. But that's just me, if everyone else thinks it is a good idea then go for it.

I hope that didn't put anyone off. I was mostly trying to explain the current siutation, and give some reasons why things are like they are, or why they are unlikely to change. By all means keep the discussion going - I'm always looking for new ways to add flavour to the classes. Preferably ways that don't require a huge amount of work

[Dolomel]

Well, I think the trick here would be to make alot more quests. AND modify the current ones so there are several possible ways of completing the quests.

As for the XP slider set to 0. I think this is a bad idea, some players won't do a single quest at all because they are mercs for hire and other players hire them to do the dirty job you know. I mean, I am Habafrj Kagdofhr, I see two players on their way to Port Kir, they see I look like an adventurer and decide to invite me in their party. I accept and do the ''quest'' with them. My only reward will be the coins and items (and xp of course) I did on this adventure because I dont care or dont even know aout the quest.

Sometime I really am difficult to understand, hope it is not here.

[Ima Dufus]

Well, I think the trick here would be to make alot more quests.

Agreed, but as you well know, even the simplest quest can take quite a bit of time to create.

AND modify the current ones so there are several possible ways of completing the quests.

Actually a lot of the current quests can be "stealthed" already, since in many cases all you really need is a particular item, or to click on a particular placeable or whatever. For example, you can stealth right past the Efreeti Tomb guardian (although the stone golems might be a bit harder to avoid, but you can kill them easily with traps).

As for the XP slider set to 0. I think this is a bad idea, some players won't do a single quest at all because they are mercs for hire and other players hire them to do the dirty job you know. I mean, I am Habafrj Kagdofhr, I see two players on their way to Port Kir, they see I look like an adventurer and decide to invite me in their party. I accept and do the ''quest'' with them. My only reward will be the coins and items (and xp of course) I did on this adventure because I dont care or dont even know aout the quest.

Sometime I really am difficult to understand, hope it is not here.

No, I understand exactly what you mean.

There are a couple of things we can do in these cases:

1) Try to encourage players to stick around for the quest reward (they really should do this anyway, since it might mean extra cash).

2) We can spread the XP across the stages of the quest, instead of all in one lump at the end. At the moment a lot of the quests only give the XP when you get your reward. Instead we can give the XP out when you actually complete the objective(s). So, for example, you would get the XP when you clear the zombie ship out in Port Kir, not when you return to the Knights of the Radiant Heart with the news.

At any rate, we still have far too few quests to switch the combat XP off. So for the immediate future at least it will remain, though we might slowly lower the amount as we add quests.

[Dolomel]

Ok nice