Rogues

[Ashi]

I'd like Rogues to get a bigger speed bonus. They should at least be able to get +10 natural speed; then they could get one point every 5 levels.
Rogues really need something to be useful at higher levels. Very few people actually use them and get far in the game. The warrior's extra attack is a lot more effective than backstabbing; rangers can use most spells while a rogue gets maybe a fourth of the spells.

[Berendol]

*cough*

[Domino]

Unfortunately Rogues aren't.. Not realy.. They're mediocre at fighting and thus most certainly do NOT live up to the title of assassin that they eventually gain.  There realy is nothing to steal in the game (except from other players), so, I ask: What is the purpose of the Rogues?  I realy think a simple speed boost doesn't address thier drawbacks.

If you wanted to have them live up to the assassin expectation then several things need to happen.  Stealth needs to be seriously improved.  Both in effect and in practice.  Rogues should be able to sneak up to, and past things that are otherwise alert to other classes.  Backstab needs to be several times more powerful.  Think about it..  If you can sneak up on something that is asleep or unwary, and plant a blade in thier back or cut thier throat, odds are good they're gonna die.  Of course this shouldn't apply to anything large but for humanoid and smaller monsters it realy should.  Secondly the selection of spells is far too generic.  There realy needs to be a larger gap between mages, rangers and rogues.   If you want the thieving side of rogues to be brought forward then the spells would realy need to be enhanced.  Non rogue characters should have difficulty in detecting stealthy rogues.  Rogues should be able to dazzle and confuse, to make impossible escapes and to perform amazing feats.  But then you would run into the issue of what is there to steal in the dungeon?  So in that regard it makes a lot more sense to focus on revamping rogues more toward the assassin extreme.  Unless of course you realy want to see more player *ahem* interaction

[Berendol]

Here are a couple ideas.

* Nethack-style stores would be good for stealing from and rogues would love those, but they're such an annoying thing that I'd hate to put them in any game of mine.

* I thought of storerooms with depth-specific items, but that's best left to vaults. Maybe a special skill that makes rogues good vault-crackers?

* Stealing from monsters: You could use typical assassin skills and sleep or paralyze the monster before stealing from it (requiring you to bypass the auto-retaliator, which is currently not possible.) If stealing from monsters were implemented, it would be so hard that it should give you an excellent IMO. It's risky to be sure, and it should have a chance of aggravation.. heh heh heh.. aggravation is permanent haste up to monster's base+20 + awake

* Subset of roguely spells (tm) in one book, or two: Haste self, remove fear, minor and major healing, teleport self, scare monster, enchant/brand ammo, find doors and traps, detect monsters, identify, etc like that.

* Better speed bonus. +10 at level 50 is definitely reasonable, because living a life of thievery, you'd learn to be quick.

[Ashi]

The rogue seems like the "average" class. They have a lot of abilities, but they can't do any of them particularly well. All the other classes excel in a specific ability that makes them powerful by the end of the game.

I think the most beneficial improvement to Rogues would be the +1 speed every 5 levels.

Rogues do not need a Stealth bonus in my opinion, because if you really need stealth, you can enter "Stealth" mode instead of Search mode.

As Crimson says, we can't really change the spell system.

Stealing from monsters is a great idea. The number of items that can be stolen can depend on the number of items the monster would normally drop; stealing would become profitable since monsters would still drop items even after they have been stolen from. This way, rogues get more l00t. Also, it would be impossible to steal from monsters that don't drop, such as molds and natural creatures. The type of items also would depend on the type the monster drops; uniques and rare monsters such as wyrms would yield excellent items when robbed. It would also be dangerous since the longer you wait before killing the monster, the more it breathes on you. The failure chance of stealing from monsters can be dereased as their HP decreases, similar to the way their damage decreases. Finally, the steal command should work with targeting, so that once you target a monster, you can just keep hitting the steal command until you get something.

[Berendol]

[quote author=Ashi link=board=wishlist;num=1053395894;start=0#4 date=05/24/03 at 22:16:25]
... The failure chance of stealing from monsters can be dereased as their HP decreases...[/quote]

I dunno if we should be dereasing anything. It might upset the cosmic rease balance.

[Domino]

Ashi, if you look more carefully at my post I didn't say that rogues need a larger stealth bonus, I said that stealth needs to be re-worked to well WORK.  It's pretty much useless on most higher order uniques, undead, hounds, etc et al.  And this doesn't even cover players at all..

[Fink]

I say LOTS of stealth, and LOTS of speed, but make em suffer in some other way... This would make it a class of its own really, and not as its now a Crappy warrior thats need a few books. But lack destruction and all attack spells.

Remove Haste self, and maybe a few more things.
a little Less HP, and maybe -5 tohit, if its not a sneak attack. Maybe less mana than normal... etc.

On berendols server you get +20 Speed, at level 50.
I think thats too easy in the beginning, so I vote for
+1/4 level to level 36 with +9, and then +1/2 level to level 50. Making it +16 at level 50, in other words a inbuilt really nice speed ring.

[Herbert]

About rogues, it seems that their characteristics are speed and stealth, tha sounds good to make a class of its own, so here is a suggestion to make it more random:

why not have +RAND(0,1) each level after ... say.... lev20. Thant would make lucky rogues be +30 at lev50 (8)) and poor rogues be only +0 (i would suicide it i'm still +0 at lev30 :-[ ). The average would be a rogue with +15 at lev50 (still a nice builtin speedie).
Same can be done for stealth.

What do you think ?

Herbert ^_^  

[Maegdae]

Why not have extremely high stealth affect player vision?  I.E, a level 50 rogue with nice stealth gear would be invisible to most players via esp.  Perhaps this could only be done with a rogue with the stealth mode on.  

That would allow him to track them down in the dungeon for a surprise attack.. or many other things.  It could be gradual, with high stealth meaning you'd blink on esp, the more stealth the less you'd appear.

This'd make rogues play more like rogues.. stealing, backstabbing, ambushing... shouldn't people fear/hate rogues?  

Here's one of the many dictionary definitions @ http://www.yourdictionary.com/ahd/r/r0286200.html online dictionary:

An unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable person; a scoundrel or rascal.

Why is it, then, that currently nobody really thinks this way about most other rogues?

[Fink]

Ashi's comments about Rogues being what amounts to an average class, not very good at anyone thing; along with the comments above of the difficulty of finding a reasonable (or realistic) thing to tweak, makes me wonder if the way to differeniate this class is simply by cash.

If character class A is always better throughout the game blah, and character class B is always better throughout the game at zrb, then perhaps Rogues should be made to be always more wealthy at whatever level than other players.

Tweaking chance to drop good items when a monster is killed (whether overtly, by literally saying that when a rogue kills a monster, that monseter will generally drop better loot than if a non-rogue killed it; or in effect, by having the ability to steal from a monster to get good loot, and have it still drop normal loot on death), means that a rogue is different as a class by virtue of having access to better loot at all stages - by better loot drops, and generally having more cash to buy good stuff in town and from other players.

-Fink

[Anyar]

perhaps a rouge spellbook should be created? this would let rouges have much more ability to learn. backstab should be 2 or 3 times more powerful and rouges hard to see, also a quicker recall would be good. also farther daylight view and intrinistic abilioty to see in dark.if rouges were to become more like assassins pk xp should be raised. to balance thjis rouges should be charged 10-20% more at all stores except for black market and have higher -hit with heavy armor
PS-speed should be +1 every 5 levels

[Berendol]

You could modify the client to support another class, and create an Assassin class. This class would be unwelcome at any store, but would be very good at PvP. Of course, all they need is a high-level supplier or a lot of money, and the whole ship sinks.

What we really should do is wait for DServ (@RIT) to come back online in late August, and I can do this kind of stuff!

By the way... check these two links out:
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=rouge
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=rogue
Pet peeve: Incorrect spelling of the word "Rogue" :-/