Shattered Kingdoms

I have some ideas to make rogues more useful in PvE and PvP that I didn't see in the list. Sorry, I'm a bit late to the party.

My lines of thinking are more directed around the idea that a rogue's fighting style and tactics interfere with his opponent, and as such aren't targeted around formation as much, but instead are directed towards the idea that a rogue is skilled at fighting in unexpected ways that his target doesn't expect, and by striking vital points can weaken the offensive and/or defensive capabilities of both A) his melee targets while wielding a finesse weapon, and B) his circle stab/hamstring targets.

Why are rogues currently weak in PvE? Because they don't do more damage than a warrior class, they cannot ride front rank, and they're vulnerable in the second row to reaching PvE NPCs.

Which of these can/should be changed? For one, I don't think rogues should be able to deal more damage than a warrior class in a full on brawl, so the raw damage output of a rogue shouldn't exceed that of a decked out warrior/barbarian/swashbuckler. For not being able to ride front or second rank, there have been good skills already suggested like divert that would do a good job there. I personally love the idea of divert: The same as tumble but that doesn't change your formation, but that unlike tumble is only able to divert one target at a time. However, I would suggest some sort of limitation on divert in the form of a cooldown on the rogue or on the target to prevent it from being able to be spammed. I'm partial to the idea that if a rogue diverts the attention of an enemy, that same rogue should not be able to divert that enemy again for 10 combat rounds. This would make it useful but not godlike in PvP while avoiding silliness in PvE.

Now, as to the damage side: What about some options that could allow a rogue to add damage or limit the enemy meaningfully without just adding raw damage? I think there's an entire world of potential status affects that a rogue should be able to reasonably apply to an enemy that, while not increasing his own raw damage output, could not only make a rogue useful but potentially even desirable in PvE.

Here's two thoughts.



Those are my two initial thoughts: Giving them a unique damage amplifier that applies both to themselves and their party would greatly help their usage in both PvE and PvP while fitting with their theme, plus it would look kinda cool to see "Valtari strikes Slayne, leaving an exposed wound on his right arm!" during combat. In addition, giving rogues an extra mechanic for slowing down combat skills of a dedicated single target in both PvE and PvP would also add to their attractiveness in both endeavours. By having harassment require more upfront lag than circle, it gives the rogue a choice to make as to whether it's worth the dedicated attention for any given fight also. I think it would also make a rogue more rewarding and engaging to play.

I think those two skills plus divert would probably make rogues perfectly competitive, if not perhaps too powerful for the health of the game.

Maybe some more thoughts later.

Well, apparently I really know how to kill a conversation. I promise there's no hidden necro buffs in those suggestions.

Until someone goes and controls a bunch of high level undead rogues and status-affects someone to death. That is always a factor when you consider new abilities for PCs, that necromancers and sorcerers also have ways to use those same abilities. That is one reason I prefer utility, PvE, and defensive improvements. Consider, for instance, if it did become possible for a rogue to shank or hit people in mid-rank positions or impose more status affects; now a necromancer can triple-down on that. I realize you were joking, but it always has to be a consideration.

Something like divert or, for instance, stealth, would be of extremely limited or no use to anyone controlling an NPC or undead. Yes, you could take one with you on PvE and have it divert, but it seems unlikely to be worth it when you have to spend a bunch of extra time entering order commands to really capitalize on the ability. A barbarian or mercenary control would be far more convenient.

It would, for what it's worth, make perfect sense to disable these on undead because they're intrinsically geared towards the rogue getting inside the head of his target to impair them. Undead swashbucklers can't taunt either.

Also, I think the status affect for wound should be unique on any given body part for a target, a la heckle for a swash. I think it would be best tuned in a way so that a moderate to large-sized group would actually -benefit- from a rogue being in the group as opposed to just having another merc or barb, but that if you only had 1 other melee that it would be about the same, damage-wise.

Also, I think it would help with the nerf that weaker enhanced damage gave to dual backstab: If wound applies on the first backstab, then the extra bonus damage could be applied to the second backstab if it lands. Same with circle stab.

Solving all kinds of problems here.

Alright, let's get into it with the wound command a little. Let's say someone gets hit by the wounding strike, which would be a modified circle stab in the same way hamstring is. I presume it would be a command that is entered with an argument? Such as, "wound <target> <location>," with success penalties for different body parts? Meaning, it would be easier to hit someone with a wounding strike in their chest than their head, etc. This would cause the room to get spammed once per round showing that X is bleeding from Y. Would this do continuous damage in a way similar to a magma spray cling? Would a heal spell have a chance to end the condition? What about a regenerate spell? Would you get a fortitude save to resist this at the outset, or perhaps at the end of each round where you have the affect on, or both, or should no saves be given? And, for the duration of the wound, opponents will get a positive damage modifier only to that hit location (and presumably a rogue could keep wounding different locations)?

What do you think about a sap skill that works as a circle variant, but that requires a blunt weapon (rogues get the mace skill) and has a chance to KO an opponent like a headbutt does. It would deal some fraction of the damage of a normal circle stab, and the damage would be applied to the target's head. As with hamstring, you could start a fight with a sap.

I think that the -active- usage of wound should only be able to be used while in melee combat with a light weapon e.g. a dagger, and that it would only affect your target. Think kick. The syntax would just be "wound right arm/wound head." I personally like the idea of the action itself being very little damage a la kick and it only adding to further strikes to that area.

It makes sense to me to have the chance of landing a wound be lower on more vital areas, but as I mentioned above, I view this as being a very short-term affect: Only a few combat rounds. In most fights I foresee that a front-rank rogue would likely first want to divert away from himself, and then set to wounding the chest and head of his target only assuming his party is aiming upper. At most if a rogue did nothing but wound from the front rank, he would only be able to maintain three active wounds at a time.

I don't think it would be necessary to have the wound echo on each round. The game's spammy enough: Just let it get applied visibly and maybe have it display on glance/look during combat.

Also as mentioned above, I think that wound should have a passive check to succeed on all circle stabs, hamstrings and backstabs. Since circles always hit the chest, that means that having a rogue in your back rank would mean that the entire party's damage is amplified on chest shots.

The fact is that if you put increasing the raw damage of a rogue off the table, then you have to give them something in the form of debuffs that either increase the parties damage or decrease the victim's damage for them to be even remotely competitive with melee classes. I'm a personal fan of debuffs that increase damage dealt to a target, just because that is a lot more rewarding.

Sap seems like a neat idea, but fundamentally I'm not a big fan of adding skills that are only going to affect edge cases in PvP: At least not before focusing on skills that would make them more attractive in many situations of both PvP and PvE.

How would you feel about the duration and the damage boost it gives to strikes against the targeted area being a function of the rogue's intelligence? The more intelligent the rogue, the longer the wound lasts and the greater the modifier to subsequent damage that occurs to the affected area for the duration of the wound. I'm not suggesting an enormous difference, but some difference. A giant's circle stab would hit harder, but a deep-elf's precision and knowledge of anatomy would give his allies a bigger boost. This would also mean that wounding strikes from charms and controls would be less effective.

I like the idea of giving rogues a reason to actually pump INT instead of most (uncabaled) rogues getting to use it for a dump stat at the moment. The pick lock helpfile says it uses INT, but my experience with pick lock is that it either works or not and has nothing to do with INT at all. I suppose scrolls also use INT, but pet/fod scrolls are pretty rarely useful nowadays in my opinion for a rogue.

That said, the theme of my two suggestions is still that a rogue's job should be to single out a specific target and dedicate all their attention to them, especially in group combat. Wound is the way of doing so at a damage-oriented level, whereas harassment is meant to be on a utility level. Both are limited to only being used on your current melee target while in melee, or to a single target you elect to focus on in group combat.

To that end, while I think it would be nice for INT to affect the damage output, I don't really like the idea of the skill being a "fire and forget" sort of thing that you could feasibly apply to multiple enemies even in the same fight. Rogues aren't swashbucklers, and while I like the current active feel of swashbucklers, I think a rogue should be more singularly focused on one enemy during a fight. I'm a fan of the idea of the active "wound" command taking 1 round to activate and then lasting at most 4-5 rounds afterwards, I'd prefer only 3 myself. That means the rogue has to keep focused on their enemy in order to maximize their potential.