AshenPlanet

There are 2 important factors in stealing, stealth and speed. Nothing else applies... As the posters above stated, when your circle is yellow, you can steal without losing reputation. When your circle is red, you will be caught. This means the npcs may attack you, or you may lose reputation with them, or nothing will happen (sometimes happens if the npc has no faction to lose reputation with). What stealth does is affect how fast the circle turns from plain to yellow and from yellow to red - the higher the stealth, the slower the change. What stealth does not do is help you hide from an npc - if you are seen when you enter stealth, you are seen, plain and simple. So how do you steal those containers that are close to people? That's where speed comes into play. If you have high speed, you can go far enough away, hide, and then run to the container to open it before your circle turns red. Boots of speed are great for this with their +3 speed. So, a combination of high stealth to slow down the change to red circle, and high speed to run to the container before your crcle turns red, is how you steal successfully without any repercussions.

Not bothering with deflection and only attacking things that are already engaged by your 'tank' means that you're either 1. playing on easy mode or 2. holding back your rogue half the time which massively reduces her dps. First off, why bother having any tanks at all if you are playing a rogue as your main char? You are just asking mobs to attack your rogue making you waste time and damage output running around and disengaging. You can make your fighter or paladin offensive as well with a 2hander or dual-weilding - don't worry, there is zero danger of anyone doing more damage than your rogue (unless it's a bad rogue build). Maxing Dex, Per and Res doesn't cost a rogue much, since int has no use whatsoever for a rogue, you can max all 3 of those stats and still have your might 3 points from max, and might means very little to a high level rogue, they get most of their damage from deathblows/sneak attacks, and might bonus is additive, not multiplicative. I've played it both ways, with as high a deflection as you can get and without, and the high deflection rogue has much much better DPS output. You don't have to go back and forth engaging/disengaging or waiting for other characters to engage, you can just jump right in and do as much damage as possible throughout the fight.

1. savage attack is the one to go for. If you are mostly fighting with an advantage (ie. against flanked, blinded, prone, weakened, etc. opponents), you will have no trouble hitting and criting, 2. Deflection is very important to a rogue, get it as high as you can if you want to do as much sustained dps as possible. Ring, Superior deflection talent, max perception and resolve. Shields have no place on a rogue. When every attack you make gets boosted by deathblows, sneak attack, savage, etc. there really is no good option that compares to dual wielding fast weapons.

Try a different rogue build... Barbarians are tough, and heart of fury is their level 11 ability. Blind them, prone them, flank them, change your rogue, etc... There are lot's of ways to deal with barbarians. Single them out to deal with right away with your party before any other enemies if your rogue can't survive against them.

Build him like a caster, i.e. max Int, might, and high Dex, dump con. Use a pike or durance's quarterstaff so he can stay close enough to the fight to provide heals to the front line, but not actually be on the front line. You could also go weapon and shield and be right up on the front line, but you won't have the high base deflection that fighters and paladins have.

I agree with most of the above except this. Might is not the same for everyone, and neither is intellect. A monk, for example, receives double might bonus on their hands, for barbarians, that might bonus applies to a number of targets, but for a rogue, might means very little, with all the bonuses they get, they can better increase their DPS in other ways. Tanks can get full use from might, but generally, you have other priorities if you are making a tank. Also, if you are looking to do damage, then Dex allows any non-spellcaster, except unarmed attacks to do more DPS than the same points spent in might. So, this is definitely the stat that you'd want to max first, and even for unarmed monks, it's still arguably more important since it will allow you to spend your wound points faster. The reverse of this is true for casters, who get more value out of might than dex. Basically, decide if you want your fighter to be a tank, or damage dealing fighter and build accordingly - the various suggestions above are all good. If you are planning on have mostly casters in your party like the 4 companion casters, cipher, priest, druid, wizard, than tank may be a good option for you to protect those guys. If you are planning on using more of the attacking companions, like the chanter, ranger, paladin, fighter, etc. than you do not need a tank, just build for dealing damage.

Good points. I usually start with a pair of hatchets that you get in the starting area from the temple/ruin defenders. These are great weapons to start out with. The only problem with hatchets is that there are no great magic hatchets, so their usefulness diminishes later in the game. After leaving the ruins, I try to avoid fighting anything (except what's needed in cad nua) until I can pick up all the companions and get to defiance bay. In the first town weapon shop, you can buy the best stiletto in the game, and you can get a +12 accuracy, very nice stiletto from the doemenals as early as 3rd level. I use those pretty much exclusively until late game when you can get a superb rapier and superb dagger in deep endless paths. As you said, these stilettos are good against high DR monsters, and specifically the stiletto you get in the first town shop is pretty awesome against anything, high DR or not, until you get to the very late game superb weapons, a few basic enchantments like fine and eventually exceptional, and a lash, is all it needs. I'll wait to take focus noble and switch to the superb rapier/dagger for the late game. In the late game, you'll regularly be hitting for 60+, and the DR isn't as big a deal. Well made rogues work great against the dragons and the end boss. They won't be the first/primary target if you build them right, and they're not the lowest deflection in the front line, and if they do fall to a breath or tail swipe, you should bring them back into the fight asap. Whether or not they drop in the middle of the fight, they will do more DPS than anyone else in your party by a wide margin, even druids and wizards can't keep up with their crazy high single-target DPS.

This sounds like you've never played a rogue... Shields don't work.

Nothing is screwed up, really. As long as you didn't gimp your Per and Res too badly, you can still make it work with equipment and a talent. You can also always make it different next time, and see how much easier it is. What I did on my last rogue, hearth orlan (best rogues imo): str 10 , dex 19, con 7, per 20, int 3, res 19. You could go with 14 str and 3 con if you wanted to really min-max (17 str is max), but I went with a little higher con. The main thing is get as much deflection as what's available. Take superior deflection, use a +10 def ring, etc. to get it as high as possible. You should be dual-weilding fast melee weapons with maximum padded armor to be attacking as fast as a halfling can. Keep in mind, your deflection will never be high enough to not get hit by everything. That's not what you are trying to do, dragons and bosses will always hit you. What you are trying to do is not be the lowest Deflection guy on the front line... So give eder and pallegina two-handed weapons or dual-weilding, guardian stance, etc. so that they are near where you are and not a lot higher (no shields), but they can be in heavy armor. They both get a lot more base deflection than rogues do, but if you maxed yourself out with stats, talents, and equipment, you should still be comparable to them. This way you will be sharing the front line with 1 or 2 people who can take many of the hits instead of you. I never bothered with backstab or finishing blows, backstab is terrible, and finishing blows is per rest... You shouldn't be thinking along the lines of "at least I get 1 more sneak attack", you should be engineering the situations so that you always get sneak attacks, and always deathblows as soon as that is available at 9th level. Use mother, use aloth, use durance, use hiravias, whoever you have with you, to add status effects to your opponents, with 2 status effects on them, you do crazy damage! If you didn't use the flanking spell (phantom foes), like if you opened with mental binding instead, then move Eder or pallengina around to give you flanking. They don't do anywhere near the damage you can do, so make them run around... Or, you could use shadowing or escape or coordinated positioning to do it yourself...

Lol. Rogues using ranged weapons do about 1/4 the DPS as melee rogues, and that's with optimizing deep wounds, poison, etc to the best of their ability. If you are going to do a rogue, don't waste your time on a ranged weapon. Rogues actually do better than any other class for single target DPS, if built properly. Backstab is always a waste of time also, whether or not you use shadowing beyond. Max his/her deflection, it's his weakest and most important defense. Duel-weild fast melee weapons. Use eder or pallegina or both with him using a two-handed weapon or dual-weilding on the front line. Make liberal use of mother to keep his opponents on phantom foes / mental binding. Make liberal use of aloth to keep targets slickened / blacksight. With maxed dex and Per, you should have as high a reflex as you can get, so even if you are caught in a breath, you'll have a chance of surviving it.

Combinations would really work in whatever way you wanted, so your suggestions would be just fine. The only thing I would add is weapons for a Flames of Devotion paladin or turning wheel monk may be better off with burning lash, and swift fists with lightning lash, since you are already doing a specific elemental damage type, and it's better to add to that than to use a different element and go through 25% of the DR again. Dual-weilders don't really pay any extra, because 2handers cost double the components for enchanting. As for your question, you get 12 points total. Fine is 2, exceptional is 4, and superb is 6 Any lash is 2. Kith slaying is 4, and any other slaying is 2. For your example of a 6/12 fine weapon, you are paying 4 points for the non-enchantables - that leaves 8 points for everything else. If you are planning on superb, then that leaves you with only 2 points which would be best spent on a lash, which is more universally useful than a slaying. Keep in mind, you can only make 2 superb 1-handed weapons or 1 2handed weapon throughout the whole game. If you choose to go to exceptional, which you should, as exceptional is a better use of points than either slaying or lash, than that leaves you with 4 points. You could either go with kith slaying or any lash + any non-kith slaying. So, to use your examples, you could use corrosive lash / Wilder slay. The most difficult opponents in the game are spirits and beasts, if that factors into what you'll want your best weapons saved for.

There's no reason not to play a druid and have hiravias in your party. When I played a wizard main char, I had durance, mother, hiravias, and aloth in my party. We all had the elemental talents (except for mother), and just blasted everything to death. Another druid will only help your party, not hurt it. Turn on the option to reset levels on all npcs as soon as you recruit them. That way they reset to level 1, and you can level them up the way you want.

One thing I forgot to point out, is that a tank won't be hurt by the change to Per anywhere near as much as a rogue. A tank will be using weapon and shield style and single weapon style (with shield), and so will still have super high deflection and only lose a small portion from stats. Rogues, dual-weilding, have no shield and very little (less than many other classes) base deflection as well. So, every single point of deflection that you can pull from stats and equipment is worth a lot more than it is for a tank.

If you gimp int and con also, then what we are really talking about is 3 points of stats. Assume a hearth halfling, which imo is the best race for a rogue. Then you are talking about having a 14 Str, a 20 Per, and a 19 Res, which is what I am recommending because I think the extra deflection is a bigger deal than the extra few point of damage (interrupts are good, especially when you are dual-weilding fast weapons and your target can hit you for huge damage per hit). Or, having a 17 Str, a 17 Per, and a 19 Res, as you are recommending for the few extra points of damage and a little less deflection and interrupts. 3 points of stats is so little and not worth arguing about that I won't push this point any more. We are basically saying the same thing, 3 points is a negligible difference. Accuracy is not a big factor at all for a main-character rogue. On my rogue playthrough, I had over 2500 crits, and around 1300 hits. Just having 1 cipher in your party is enough to make sure everything you fight is flanked or blinded, or both. I almost never missed, and as you can see above, I crit far more often than I hit. I didn't even bother having gloves of accuracy on - I gave those to Aloth instead. While the stealth changes will be great for rogues, the perception changes will definitely hurt rogues more than any other class. Accuracy is not needed for them if you play them right, but deflection is a HUGE deal! It will definitely be a massive nerf for them. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, rogues are one of the top classes right now along with wizards, druids, and ciphers, so maybe a nerf is coming... Rogues will still want to max Per after the change just like every other class will have max Per, but losing deflection, which is extremely important for them, for accuracy, which is not a big deal at all, is definitely going to be bad for them...

Agreed. Early greater focus is a great choice. I always choose it as the first talent for mother.