What makes a Rogue? How do you make your rogue exactly what you want him to be? let’s take a look.

Rogue Building

While a Fighter excells in martial prowess, Wizards master the arcane secrets of yoggsotthery, and Clerics bring the will and might of their god’s miracles to the aid of a party, the Rogue has the most flexible role of all.

Skills

Rogues don’t get good hit points. They don’t get good base attack bonuses. They don’t get divine magic. They don’t get arcane magic. What they do get however is an assload of skill points and plenty of class skills to divide them between.

Amongst these are some of the most universally helpful skills known to the d20 system:

• bluff
• listen
• sense motive
• spot
• tumble

Rogues need not use magic to know what’s going on, who is hiding something, where a trap is waiting to kill them off. They can avoid attacks of opportunity while exiting a bad situation. They can sell sand to a desert nomad and refrigerators to artic barbarians.

Which skills you invest ranks into will more seriously shape your character than anything else during character creation. You get 8 plus your Int modifier per level, so you’ll have a fair amount of play one way or another as you select which skills you excel at, which you are skilled at, and which you let atrophy.

Attributes

Moreso than other classes, Rogues do not have a true Prime Requisite skill. Wizards rely on Intelligence, Clerics on Wisdom. Fighters will generally want to pick an attribute that suits their style (strength or dexterity normally) and run with it. To make an effective rogue, you’ll want good stats in attributes that assist your skill set.

Strength

Strength is not normally seen as a good stat for rogues, but that need not be so. Climb, Jump, and Swim are all greatly useful for catbuglars and smugglers, and rely upon Strength. If your party needs you to scurry up a wall in a pinch, you’ll want at least a decent Strength attribute.

Dexterity

Traditionally the strong suit for rogues, many traditional Theiving Skills rely on this stats. Pick Pockets, Move Silently, and other applications of dexterity are indeed very useful to the sticky-fingered Thief type. Also note that Rogues do not get free proficiency in Medium or Heavy armor, so Dexterity will help you with keeping from getting dead.

Constitution

This is still the least helpful of attributes as skills go. Only concentration, hit points, and fortitude saves are helped by a good Constitution score.

Intelligence

Ah, intelligence. A stupid Rogue is not a long-lived Rogue. In addition to a number of useful skills (such as Appraise, Forgery, and Search), a good Intelligence will increase the number of skill points you get every level, allowing you to compensate for poor stats elsewhere. In the long run (over several levels) having a high Intelligence will more than make up for a subnormal stat where skills are concerned.

Wisdom

The most universally useful skills of Spot and Sense Motive (invaluable in avoiding ambushes and verbal entrapment during an adventure) are based upon Wisdom, as is the Will save, which is normally poor for Rogues.

Charisma

Formerly the red-headed stepchild of D&D statistics, Charisma is quite useful for a rogue who deals with reasonably intelligent opponents. Bluff and Intimidate are both Charisma based, as are other skills that help a Rogue make up for poor combat skills through treachery as opposed to agility.

Putting a complimentary set of Attributes and Skills together can yield a wide variety of effective characters of the Rogue class.