Grimrock

Saxi wrote:

Arch0n wrote:

Saxi wrote:True but dex should improve a rogues fighting skills and evade should actually do something. That is the whole dynamic of a rogue, making them pump strength and ignore dex defeats the purpose of the rogue class. It is made worse by the lack of duel wield that puts a nail in the coffin making rogue melee pointless.

I've read all your posts. It sounds like you want to play a different game.

You keep saying how "pointless" rogues are because the mechanics aren't conforming to your preconceived notions, you want dual wield, you want the code rewritten to respect "RPG 101" (whatever that is)... none of that is going to happen. In fact, Dex rogues are far from pointless in any respect, despite your desire to min/max.

Might I suggest another game, or swapping out your rogue for a mage.

It isn't about mix/maxing. I prefer melee rogues, not missile weapons. Rogues are suppose to dish out a ton of dmg and evade equally well. From the looks of it though, they do neither well unless you put them in back, give them a bow, and make them Arnold Schwarzenegger. Considering dual wielding rogues are extremely popular, I doubt I am alone in this.

It's their game, they are free to do whatever they like, in fact they could make mages use dual daggers and fighters use a diaper catapult. But it looks more of an oversight than a choice.

You guys forgot one important advantage of the dagger, its attack speed. I currently play with a party of a front fighter and rogue (dagger, dodge) and back mage and rogue (missile).

My rogue can attack about 2 times while the fighter hit once (+ because of the rather high dex for evasion he rarely misses), eventhough dealing a bit less damage currently if both hit. But mostly over the whole fight the rogue deals more damage, because eventhough i haven't ignored dex on the fighter, i went for more strenght for him and so the misses sometimes and the rogue gets almost all his hits in the meantime on the target (and if i would have gone for more dex on the fighter he wouldn't deal so much damage so the rogue would be just as effective).

Also i noticed that my fighter desite a rather good health pool and all the best defensive items dies more often than the rogue so i would say that evasion is working (though i haven't any other prooves than my feeling)

I'm not that far in the game and i'm not quite sure how it will turn out later, but currently it seems to work

EDIT: also don't forget the special attacks you get, yes the fighters get massive damage attacks, but from reading the description under the dagger skill it seems that the rouge gets armor penetration, multiple hits with one attack later and the last ability seems like it has a chance to 1 shot any opponent (so i guess he could even be outdamaging a fighter in the end game)

EDIT2: also if you want to max out the damage potencial of a close combat rogue -> go for assasination (to get the ability to use close combat weapons from the back row ASAP, so you don't need evesion) and than daggers (+ advance further down assasination - i have no idea how many skills you can get before he end of the game but I guess you can still amx out daggers and get to the improved attack speed in assasination (maybe its even possible to max out 2 skill - as i said i don't know how much xo you can get during the whle game) - so the great speed of the dagger becomes even better)

I would like to chime in on the thing about dagger rogues, as I have completed the game earlier with one in my party.

No, you don't need a high strength value. I went with a lizardman that had full dex from the start and only ever got 12 points in Assassination for the Reach Attack.
The remainder of the points went into Daggers and that allowed him to deal more damage than both my fighters individually.

The fighters were using a mace/a sword, both enchanted and probably the best out of that weapon class currently in the game.
I think even though I put as many points into Maces/Swords as I could, my rogue ended up having about 10 more points in Daggers.
This is, though, because I had to put some points into Athletics for the fighters. They were human, so otherwise they wouldn't have been able to wear heavy armor without hindrances.
That should be taken into consideration when talking about how evasion is worse than protection, as most items that grant a considerable amount of protection are very, very heavy and WILL make it so you have to invest some skillpoints into getting strength for your fighters.

To the main thing though: During the attack cooldown of my mace fighter, the rogue was able to attack 3 times. If the mace lands a crushing blow, that's about 180 damage. If the rogue manages to do a Piercing Strike, that deals like 80 damage against high-armor opponents. Both those special attacks are in the same tier of skill points spent and the rogue's weapon is even worse than the fighters.
Now this vast difference in damage favoring the rogue could be because of the skill points invested, but all that would show is that strength is not as important for damage as you might think.
In my opinion, that holds true especially in melee combat, where dexterity DOES help your damage output by making you more likely to hit. I find consistent, reliable damage to be better than your chances at survival being 50/50.
Reliability also comes into play when looking at the special attacks you gain at higher skill levels. The fast attack rate of a dagger allows for a much more even practical distribution of your chances for those attacks per fight. Over the course of a whole dungeon, chances will even out regardless of your weapon. But if I'm fighting like one Goromorg, my mace guy only gets to hit twice or thrice and those attacks are either pretty big or absolutely not worth the time. If I attack with a dagger and it's just a normal attack, I still get 2 more "tries" during one mace cooldown.
Yes, those individual procs will not be as big, but if your mace only glances ~again~, I bet you wish you could land a Stab and a Piercing Strike before that cooldown finishes.

So yeah, in conclusion, I don't think it's justified to label dagger rogues (or even dex in general) worthless just because it doesn't give you the fairly miniscule increase in potential damage strength provides.
Dex has a heap of other benefits that outweigh strength as a damage stat for melee characters and can definitely make it a considerable option as a utility choice.


Questions for the devs:
Does strength also give a benefit to some resistances?
Can you dodge spells/does evasion mitigate spell damage?


edit: Completely forgot about the post above me. No, you probably can't max out two skill paths. Maybe if you pour all the skill books you find into that one character or go with a smaller party (is experience divided?) Without any of those special treatments, a character will barely max out one skill on normal. I wasn't able to max out Daggers and have Assassination 12, but I didn't give my rogue any skill books or stuff like that. So that kinda didn't help.
With the books I found it would have been possible, but not really two maxed skills. It's very likely that I missed some of the books, though.

addendum: I forgot about the few occurences of endlessly respawning monsters.
If you were really desperate, I guess you could grind yourself up to maxing multiple skills killing those.
Can't really be called "acquired during usual gameplay" anymore, though.


edit2: Oh yeah, while I'm at it: some kind of bonus to dual-wielding would be nice. It doesn't matter for the dagger vs. other weapons thing since those don't get dual-wielding attacks either and the rest see above, but "actual" dual-wield and ~maybe~ some two-handed weapons as future additions would definitely add some nice variety. It would just be a cool thing to be able to put another weapon into the off-hand and have it not be useless.

Thank you for the info spreadsheets As i said i didn't know how muc points you can get during a normal playthrough, but at least my assumption that end game rougues outdamages fighters is true

I think i'll start a new game (as i said i'm not far in the dungeon yet) and try to get a good dagger wielder as far as possible (maybe i'll try to max out assasination and get daggers up as high as possible (maybe i'll be able with those skill books to achieve the armor piercing ability of the dagger) - so if it turns out to function, he should do a LOT of armor piercing attacks with the dagger, which would (because of high dex) never miss )

EDIT: also i get the feeling from this topic (regarding the post from spreadsheets and the earlier post of the developer) that since skill points are so important, that a skilled human can be devastating in the end game (beggining with 7 skill points)

Im sticking with my Dex rogue

war_dog, your numbers are strange since Str increases damage from ranged weapons, not Dex.

Jack Dandy wrote:I still think it would make more sense if DEX would be the prime factor for bows\crossbows.

This is why I love the DnD Rules. Dex has ALWAYS been a main factor for Rogues, its their main avoidance and Dmg Modifier. I don’t understand why they didn’t make a Rogue use Dex the way it’s supposed to be used.

Str has always been a Warrior trait. Dex for Rogues and Wis and Int for Mages and Priest.

Granted, this is not DnD, but still. If you’re going to make a game based on the same principles, at least try to stick to the rules governing the character classes.

One other aspect bothers me too, and that’s Dual Wielding. Why is it that no matter how I attack that I can only attack once when two weapons are equipped? The cool down should not be placed on both weapons; this should be a separated attack that I can use for both weapons in hand. Both should be able to attack separately. Sigh!!! Again, this is why I love DnD.

Edit: OK, I forgot about this one, but weilding a bow or Crossbow. Come on guys, really? I have to place the Arrows in the offhand? Really? How fricking lame and stupid is that?

dark wrote:

Jack Dandy wrote:I still think it would make more sense if DEX would be the prime factor for bows\crossbows.

This is why I love the DnD Rules. Dex has ALWAYS been a main factor for Rogues, its their main avoidance and Dmg Modifier. I don’t understand why they didn’t make a Rogue use Dex the way it’s supposed to be used.

Str has always been a Warrior trait. Dex for Rogues and Wis and Int for Mages and Priest.

Granted, this is not DnD, but still. If you’re going to make a game based on the same principles, at least try to stick to the rules governing the character classes.

One other aspect bothers me too, and that’s Dual Wielding. Why is it that no matter how I attack that I can only attack once when two weapons are equipped? The cool down should not be placed on both weapons; this should be a separated attack that I can use for both weapons in hand. Both should be able to attack separately. Sigh!!! Again, this is why I love DnD.

Edit: OK, I forgot about this one, but weilding a bow or Crossbow. Come on guys, really? I have to place the Arrows in the offhand? Really? How fricking lame and stupid is that?

In DnD Dex is important for rogues because of the abilities and for the AC. Weapon wise is STR what determines your attack rating and damage with melee weapons (unless you take weapon finesse). But yeah I agree, my first thought when building a rogue is pumping dex.

Whisper wrote:war_dog, your numbers are strange since Str increases damage from ranged weapons, not Dex.

well, never the less my numbers are correct, ill make another test later then... ( u sure str is not only for thrown weapons ? )

war_dog wrote:

Whisper wrote:war_dog, your numbers are strange since Str increases damage from ranged weapons, not Dex.

well, never the less my numbers are correct, ill make another test later then... ( u sure str is not only for thrown weapons ? )

The devs (in this very thread) have clearly stated that STR controls damage for all weapon types.

On your results, I assume that your rogue has bow skill whereas your warrior does not. The devs have also stated that skill level has a very large effect on damage. So, basically, if your rogue had the same skill level but was strength based rather than dex based, you'd be seeing even more damage.

stepsongrapes wrote:

war_dog wrote:

Whisper wrote:war_dog, your numbers are strange since Str increases damage from ranged weapons, not Dex.

well, never the less my numbers are correct, ill make another test later then... ( u sure str is not only for thrown weapons ? )

The devs (in this very thread) have clearly stated that STR controls damage for all weapon types.

On your results, I assume that your rogue has bow skill whereas your warrior does not. The devs have also stated that skill level has a very large effect on damage. So, basically, if your rogue had the same skill level but was strength based rather than dex based, you'd be seeing even more damage.

Point taken, yea my rogue is focused on ranged, forgot to take that in consideration.