Overview
A game play walk through for those who enjoy playing as a Rogue.
Introduction
“…[Walk] softly, and carry a big stick…”
-T. Roosevelt, Big Stick Diplomacy
This walk-through is for those who wish to play the main character as the Rogue class.
Personally I’ve found it to be the most helpful throughout the game since playing as a Rogue provides the greatest utility at the earliest point, the very start of the game.
Rogues can use the Stealth ability, unlock chests and most importantly pick pockets.
Their need for high Cunning plays directly into the player’s ability to persuade others, as will as making their fingers stickier and their lock picks…pickier….
Overall, I’d say that this class provides the player with the greatest benefit through functional utility and versatility compared to the other classes, whose strengths come at the loss of these benefits.
Race and Origin Selection
This choice is left largely up to the player and matters relatively little, but the role with the greatest innate benefits may be the Dwarf Noble.
The penultimate reason being that Dwarves receive +2 bonuses to Dexterity and Constitution, where the other races do not and ultimate reason being that the Dwarven Noble has access to better Pickpocketing caches than the Dwarven Outcast.
Therefore, choosing to play as a Dwarven Noble will reward the player by allocating innate stat points to one area of strength and one area of weakness, while also yielding the player with the best weapons, items, and currency received when pick pocketing the unsuspecting, which equates to a higher early game gold yield overall.
Elves make better Mages or Warriors because of their +2 bonus to Magic and Willpower, this equals higher healing potential with a greater usage of combat skills.
Human’s are good for any class since they receive +1 to all stats, however this is less desirable than the other races who receive the more specialized stats gains. The reason playing as a human is less desirable over the other two races, is because the +1 bonus to all stats, is relatively wasted in the sense that the character won’t be using or needing all of these stat bonuses.
In the end, it doesn’t really matter which character race is picked, or which origin story is taken since they all end up in the same place. Pick which ever class the player feels the most comfortable with, or hasn’t played with yet.
Allocating Stats
A Rogue Benefits Most from:
High Cunning – As high as possible without completely breaking the character, there is a passive skill to be taken later, which replaces the characters strength score with the cunning bonus to increase the chances of landing physical hits
Moderate Dexterity – The dexterity skill governs the characters ability to dodge, as well as their effectiveness with the Bow & Arrow, therefore it is relatively essential for Rogues, more so for Archers than anything else
Moderate Willpower – Willpower is also a necessary must have for Rogues of any specialization, since higher Willpower increases mental resistances and allows the Rogue to use more combat skills per fight, for Bards and Rangers, this skill must be raised higher than usual to compensate for the cost of the maintained skills.
Low to Moderate Constitution – Constitution is one of those catch-22 skill investments, since a skilled rogue with high enough dexterity is nearly impossible to hit, however if they are hit it will most likely be a one-shot. Therefore it is necessary to slowly invest into constitution as the player progresses in order to keep up with the players health requirements.
Strength should kept to a minimum, unless the player is planning on becoming a Duelist and intends to dual wield two “medium” sized weapons i.e. two swords or a sword and hand-axe.
Magic is almost completely unnecessary on a Rogue, unless the player decided to invest heavily into Constitution for some reason, in which case they will require a slight boost in Magic in order to adequately heal themselves.
Playing as a Rogue
The Thieves Weapons:
Dual Wield Daggers – ‘Nuff said there, it’s pretty self explained. Rogues gain no overall benefit from wielding a shield since they can’t back-stab with a shield or gain any combat skills that utilize one.
While the Dualist specialization allows for the use of the larger Strength based one-handed weapons, this requires the use of Strength which is really counter-intuitive to a class revolving around significant investments into Dexterity and Cunning.
Especially since there is a feat which adds the Cunning multiplier to the Rogue’s chance to hit instead of using Strength (whichever is higher). Given this factor, specializing in either a Strength/Dex build or a Dex/Cunning build should be taken into consideration to save on attribute and skill points. Strength/Dex for Dualists and Dex/Cunning for all others.
Bow and Arrow – This should be the main weapon used by the Rogue until enemies have closed in and back-stab opportunities are present. However, heavily investing in the skill tree is not recommended, unless the player decides to dedicate themselves toward ranged combat over melee combat. Starting the game as an unskilled archer is the most highly recommended since the Rogue is weak in melee combat, however, melee combat-wise there are considerably more skills to be invested which will significantly strengthen the Rogues back-stab abilities over-time.
A note on Arrows, always remember to equip the entire party with unused ranged weapons along with stacks of the equip-able arrows that are found to save on inventory slots. Check back at camp and sell them to the merchant, or save them for later.
The Thieves Tools:
Stealth – Always make sure to stealth yourself for a guaranteed critical strike on any chosen enemy. Even at range this can provide a significant combat advantage by heavily damaging an enemy or outright killing them, in turn providing the battlefield advantage.
Traps – This skill is required in the early game to complete a mission and yield some small amount of experience points (XP). It’s a skill that can also have serious pay-offs towards the late game when strong enough traps can almost or instantly kill entire groups of enemies.
Use Traps and Sneak attacks to lay ambushes. Hide the party around a corner, or other viable choke point, activate Stealth and set traps at the far entrance of the choke, the entrance/exit closest to the party and in between these two points as well. Shoot the nearest enemy while still using Stealth to provoke the group into the first layer of traps, then run back and hide behind the party. Shoot at the enemies as they approach and keep the party held waiting until the third layer of traps has been sprung, then release them from Hold and let them clean up the battle field.
An additional tactic is to throw Bombs at the enemies while they are being funneled through the choke point, and or stuck in or between the trap layers. Wait for the trap effect to trigger, then follow up with a bomb for maximum effect.
Poison & Bombs – It should be noted that trap-making and poison-making are separate skill trees and it is not at all advised to dedicate the player to filling either of these trees completely or at all, unless careful consideration has been taken and it is the players intended choice. This is to save on points necessary to upgrade lock-picking, pick-pocketing and persuasiveness.
Poisons buff weapons for additional damage and Bombs are useful for chucking at groups of aforementioned enemies. The Bombs are non-discriminatory and will splash damage the party, so be careful whose being targeted or going to be targeted, since there is a slight animation delay between choosing the throwing location and throwing the bomb.
Specializing the Thief:
The specializations available to the Rogue are:
Assassin – Extra damage to poisoned targets, bleeding back stabs, additional damage based on Cunning Modifier. (This is one of the specializations that I would recommend, even though it’s Zevran’s specified role)
Bard – Buff and Debuff the party. (I wouldn’t ever recommend specializing in this class, since that is Leliana’s specified role)
Duelist – Dual wielding specialist, dual wield specific combat abilities, regular attacks can apply chance to bleed, eventually allows Rogue to dual wield strength based weapons, chance to hit and chance to defend buffs. (This is the other specialization that I would recommend, since the Rogue class is supposed to specialize in dual wielding weapons, just don’t purchase the feat that allows for dual wielding strength based weapons in the off-hand unless the Rogue is building Strength/Dex)
Ranger – Able to summon extracurricular party members; Spider, Wolf, Bear, and blighted versions of previous summons. (This class is also a good option, especially for ranged specific Rogues, or for the other Rogue party members.)
Specializing The Rogue
The specializations available to the Rogue are:
Assassin – Extra damage to poisoned targets, bleeding back stabs, additional damage based on Cunning Modifier. (This is one of the specializations that I would recommend, even though it’s Zevran’s specified role)
Bard – Buff and Debuff the party. (I wouldn’t ever recommend specializing in this class, since that is Leliana’s specified role)
Duelist – Dual wielding specialist, dual wield specific combat abilities, regular attacks can apply chance to bleed, eventually allows Rogue to dual wield strength based weapons, chance to hit and chance to defend buffs. (This is the other specialization that I would recommend, since the Rogue class is supposed to specialize in dual wielding weapons, just don’t purchase the feat that allows for dual wielding strength based weapons in the off-hand unless the Rogue is building Strength/Dex)
Ranger – Able to summon extracurricular party members; Spider, Wolf, Bear, and blighted versions of previous summons. (This class is also a good option, especially for ranged specific Rogues, or for the other Rogue party members.)
Again, the decision of which specializations to take are left largely up to the player, but here are some synergistic combinations.
Strength / Dexterity Rogue -> Duelist -> Ranger
Dexterity / Cunning Rogue -> Duelist -> Assassin
Dexterity / Cunning Archer Rogue -> Ranger -> Assassin
Willpower / Dexterity Archer Rogue -> Bard -> Ranger (A good path for Leliana specifically and no one else, raise her Dexterity to 32 to allow her to use her character specific bow, then heavily invest into Willpower to allow her to maintain all of her passive buffs/debuffs and use skills)
Pockets to Pick
This section is incomplete.
However, the most notable pockets to pick in the early game are any and all important characters, hence the need to maximize Cunning as soon as possible.
Dragonthorn Crossbow – Pick the pocket of the scalping Merchant in Lothering
Conclusion
This guide is currently a work in progress, but I hope that I shed some light on some of the game subjects and that other players found it helpful.
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Keep an eye out for my other guides across other franchises such as Resident Evil, Grand Theft Auto, Final Fantasy and various other games like A Bard’s Tale: Remastered and Resnarkeled, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II (KOTOR II) and Sega’s ultra horror survival game – Alien: Isolation.
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