a halfling rogue

[pejsaboy]

Ok everyone, I'm thinking of submitting a new character, one that I've never played at all: a halfling rogue. Well, I've played a halfling, but not RP'd a halfling. I've never played or RP'd a rogue at all. So, I'm looking for some pointers on both the class and race. Stuff like mannerisms or accents that a halfling might have, and how that might translate over to a roguish halfling. I know that I don't want to play a thief [which would be tough with the pvp rules], but I'm not sure what type of rogue I DO want to play. A while back I read that there wasn't a whole lot of use [at least in early levels] for disabling traps, and I haven't come across many locked doors if any, so I have to wonder what would be good skills for a rogue to train in aside from the obvious hide and move silently. I like the idea of being able to set traps, but in the adventuring I've done with Agron, I haven't seen a whole lot of opportunities for one to set traps.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Any Rogue on Layonara will usually need to invest, first and foremost, in these four skills: Hide, Move Silently, Tumble, and Heal. Everything else is secondary, as those four are PIVOTAL to your survival. Anything else would be like making a Barbarian with a CON of 6 - unhealthy to say the least.

As for the rest? Well, for a halfling, you're PROBABLY going to be looking at a DEX-based build (I'll get into RP as I get into detail on the mechanics). Let's assume you'll want an average STR and CON (10 on both), too.

Here are a few ideas to play with, starting with a reasonably well-balanced set of stats.

STR: 12 (-2 Racial to get 10)
DEX: 16 (+2 Racial to get 18)
CON: 10
INT: 14
WIS: 12
CHA: 12

With this, you can do just about anything with you little Rogue; take him in any direction you want. He'll never be a frontline fighter, but aside from that, he can do nearly anything. He might not exactly excel at everything, but with the INT he'll get a nice selection of skill points, and his other stats will allow him good modifiers for everything but HP.

The main thing you want to think about is where you're going to take the character. Do you want him to be a Shadowdancer? A Duelist (a poor choice for a Halfling)? An Arcane Archer? Do you even want to multiclass at all?

If you're looking at Shadowdancer, forget WIS. Drop that to 10 and add those points onto INT for the skills, or possibly CHA. Arcane Archer? You've got some serious work to do in terms of feats. Pureclass Rogue? Ah, that's where it gets fun.

The idea of a Shadowdancer is reasonably straightforward: You've got this alluring figure who can wrap shadows around them, and even command the shadows to do thier bidding. In terms of RP potential, your range is both limited and broad at the same time; you can stick to the reasonably narrow idea of an SD, or you can break out of it and go somewhere noone expects.

But it's when you go for a pureclass Rogue that things get fun. You've got an obscene number of skill points, a number of exclusive skills, and the single most powerful combat equalizer in all of D&D: Sneak Attack.

Then you get into the question of where you want to take the character as a pureclass Rogue, though. You have several options...

Generic Adventurer (A relatively even spread of skills, though the big four are still maxed; another good name for this one would be Dungeon Delver.)
Expert (Forgo Hide and Move Silently for other skills; your focus is your choice. Traps and locks are a good option, though; INT should be right behind DEX in importance, or maybe even moreso.)
Silver-tounge "Merchant" (Hey, a CHA build - work that RP, man, work it. All those extra skill points will be going into Persuade, Bluff, Gather Info, and maybe even Intimidate. WIS would be the low mental stat in this case, while you'd want to drop extra points into CHA and INT.)
Thug (Not as unintelligent as my name for them might seem, STR and CON are much more important than, say, WIS. This would basically be a sneak-attacking machine - you might want to think of dual-wielding. The big four are important, but H/MS can take a backseat to Tumble and Move Silently. Parry's another good idea.)

I've played all of these in the past (though not all on Layo)... The one I play on Layo is a Generic Adventurer, who moonlights as a Thug (he's headed Duelist, which I don't think you can do as a Halfling, what with not having rapiers as light weapons - I don't think that shortswords get Precise Strike, though I may be wrong).

No matter which route you go, there will be times when it's HARD to get to that next level. Or to stay alive at all. Two of those builds REQUIRE partying up for adventuring in places of your level, because otherwise you will get eaten. Lots. The other two get eaten only a little bit less often - life as a Rogue on Layo is tough. Rewarding as heck, but tough.

Traps are fun. Straight up fun. Finding, disabling, recovering, setting... Jeez, I love that system. Just the sound you hear when you suddenly clear a deadly area to make it totally safe (well, except for the monsters)... It's awesome. And playing a rogue without ANY skill with traps would be like... A Wizard without a Familiar. A Paladin without a warhorse. A Bard without ranks in Perform... Travesty. *He chuckles.* I'm exaggerating, sure, but I get so few uses for my CHA mod.

Combining the four basic ideas I listed above is encouraged; first think of a role you wish to fill, whether in Party or alone. Then build it, and have fun playing.

Someone's probably already posted, but... Eh. I tried.

[Pankoki]

A few things with Stephen's post:
  - Your stat distribution is incorrect, the racial adjustments don't work that way and you wont be able to get those types of numbers.
  - Arcane Archers can only be elves/half elves.
  - You can be a duelist, you would just need to use a short sword, but you still need to take the proficiencies on the rapier. Yes, even though you wont be able to use them as the precise weapon, you would simply need to waste the feat, but any other one handed piercing weapons work (short sword, dagger).
  And for the original poster:
  I've got the highest level halfling rogue in the server, been doing it for a long time with multiple versions of Layonara and what I can tell you that has made the whole thing most fun for me is: Not worrying about builds. Invest in skills you think are fun, even though they may not come up everyday while bashing monsters, rogues have the ability to waste skills like mad and have fun in the process. There is really no skill you need to have. My character has zero ranks in heal and she's level 28, trust me, you don't need them, with a good party you can have so much more fun.
  Most halflings are Joy walking. Think of a race that is in constant amusement with their surroundings and who even the seedy characters that it does have, are not dark and gloomy evil champions. Typically halflings know how to crack a good joke and make the best out of any nasty situation. Now of course you're more than welcome to play a nasty halfling, it would likely make for an amusing eye riser.
  There's tons of roles for halflings, and halfling rogues can do multiple roles in a party too, so don't bother much with focusing on one thing, you'll find out that you will be good at several and as long as you do it with a halfling attitude you will laugh so much at the sillyness of the whole thing that it will make your character worth it.  One piece of advice, don't fall into the whole "Rogues are too weak for Layo" rant. It really isn't worth your time, many times I've seen a lack of material for rogues, that is true, but it by no means diminished my fun with my character. She happily complained to everyone about their lack of taste in clothes as she stabbed someone in the back.  You don't need the world around you to be built for your class to have fun, of course it helps, but if you really put your spirit behind the character you will have just as much fun as if you'd had a dungeon littered with traps. Though there ARE a few dungeons littered with traps so you can have fun with that too!  If its a halfling, don't get too technical, you'll bore yourself to tears.  

[pejsaboy]

Two very good posts, thanks! I have a good idea of how I want to work the early stages of the build, so now I can start working on the character submission That will likely take a couple days with my limited free time though, haha. One more question: is the craft trap skill useful at all? I looked through LORE and couldn't even find it, so I'm not sure if that is handled in CNR or what...
Anyhoo, keep the comments coming if you've got 'em!

[osxmallard]

Oh and you have to like pie.  ALOT.  It's a race requirement.  

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Craft Trap is even less useful than Craft Weapon or Craft Armor. So don't do it.

Pan: What you would actually do is bring the stats up to 10/18/10/14/12/12 from 6/10/8/8/8/8. If it were a human, you'd be going from all 8s to the 12/16/10/14/12/12. It costs the same to go from 10 to 18 with a halfling's DEX as it does to go from 8 to 16 with a human's. Arcane Archer... Yeah, my bad. I've never played one; I'll use that as my feeble excuse. Duelist... Well, without Precise Strike, the class... It's not worthless, but it'd be a better idea to switch over to Fighter instead.

Halflings, from what I've seen on Layo, are pretty much the fun-loving bunch Pan's described. So I'd grin really wide if I saw a fighter-type Rogue who was an LN mercenary.

He'd still have to like pie lots. It really is a racial requirement.

[Pankoki]

Precise Strike does work, it just doesn't work with rapiers. Instead with short swords and daggers. One handed piercing weapons for halflings. So no, its not a lost cause.
  And you're right on the stats yeah. And remember that craft trap was changed to Gather Information, so its not useless to invest points there. And Craft Weapon and Armor has their RP uses so if you want to make a tailor or a weaponsmith, I'd say go for it.
 
  And yes... pie is good. Gold is good too if you want to be more Deliar-ish about it.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Precise Strike works with shortswords and daggers? Oh. Okay. Another wrong point of Stephen's. Guess Duelist is a GREAT way to go, then.

[Faldred]

pejsaboy - 8/30/2006  12:05 AM

One more question: is the craft trap skill useful at all? I looked through LORE and couldn't even find it, so I'm not sure if that is handled in CNR or what...
Anyhoo, keep the comments coming if you've got 'em!

No -- it wil be a waste of skill points to take it.  Trap making is done through the CNR system, though it's pretty materials-intensive.  You'd be better off pouring as much into disable trap as you can (including skill- and stat-enhancing items), in order to be able to recover traps for later use.

[pejsaboy]

Excellent points by everyone, and I'll be sure to make some mention of loving pie in the submission One last question before I get writing the bio: I got a pm from someone regarding setting traps. Along with saying that they had never seen anyone set a trap in the 2 years they had been playing here, they said that the rule with setting traps is that you pick up any that are not sprung. I don't mind if that's the case, I just need some verification. I can understand why [others coming along later would trip them], and would hate to forget to pick up a trap that I had set and cause another PC harm. I might wanna avoid setting traps as I tend to be a bit forgetful sometimes.... *chuckles*
EDIT:
I was wrong, one other question:
In the exapmle stats in Stephen's first post [STR 12 (-2racial =10) and DEX 16 (+2 racial =18)], would the applied stats be the 12 and 16 which the game adjusts silently to 10 and 18, or would I allocate it to the final 10 and 18? The numbers aren't overly important, just the implementation that I don't quite understand.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

In the stat allocation screen, you'll start out with 6 and 10 for STR and DEX - just push them to the 10 and 18. ^^;; I'm a bit of a PnP nerd; sorry if I confused you.

[Etinfall]

I know someone who is a nervous little guy and sets up a trap each time he rests. Then he picks it back up when finished. One of my favorite rp situations I have seen here.

I personaly do not like stat stats for creating a char. It would be very interesting to have to roll for stat points. But have to do your char sub first. That would make things interesting. Pankoki's post was right on, I like what he had to say. I have seen many different personalities fron haflings. Some that make me laugh out loud and others that make me think, creepy. Think about having a halfling alergic to pie crust

Etin

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Rolling for ability scores, Etin, would be great, but what's to stop someone from rerolling time and again to get that full set of 18s?

[pejsaboy]

I also think rolling for abilities would be great for RP. unfortunately, it would probably get abused like Stephen said.
Oh, and Stephen: You didn't confuse me about the stats, I just wasn't sure if the racial modifiers were added silently like with subraces and ECL, or if they were already accounted for on character creation. Thanks for the explanation!