Grimrock

The Rogue Party
My goal was to make a viable rogue party as I’m a sucker for the cloak and dagger style of play. After studying up a bit on the basic game mechanics I decided to give it a go. Not only did my party do well on normal, I discovered they could own hard.

NOTICE: Though the Rogue party is a viable setup you must know one thing. You probably will have some difficulty on NORMAL, more so on HARD when first starting. The first levels can be demanding, even for seasoned players (Hard). You will have to strafe and circle the mobs / Use all your ranged equipment before going melee / Quick-Save and Reload to get through mean fights. That said, when you get past the early stages of the game the party will grow stronger and stronger. This may be daunting for some, but I assure you that you’ll feel rewarded once you get further down the road. Stick with it, be cool, and pretty soon you you’ll be a satisfied rogue with all the benefits; loot, ladies (or lads), treasure, freedom.

Basic Mechanics

Front Row Rogues (FRR)
MAX DEX = MAX Evasion (Rest VIT "ideal", or STR & VIT).
SKILLS: Dodge for Both / Daggers for one, Unarmed Combat for other.
TRAITS: Evasive for Both / Agile for Daggers Rogue, Fist Fighter for Unarmed Combat Rogue.
RACE: Best - Lizardman & Human / Worst - Insectoid & Minotaur

Explained: We are Rogues, we do not take damage; we avoid it! Your FRR is not there to DPS, they are only there to tank “Evade” the dmg. So max DEX, and I recommend putting rest in VIT, or equal VIT & STR. Dump skill points in their two respective skills- but always remember to boost Dodge whenever you feel your FRR are taking too much dmg. I didn’t put anything in STR, but for some reason they hit very hard & fast, never missing. You will be surprised just how insane they can become; the Attack Speed of all four Rogues will become so crazy that many enemies will simply be stunned in mid-attack, never even making an attack, which normally just misses anyway! Dodge will eventually grant you the ability to use Light Armor without penalty; use this! But gear that grants Evasion is better than Protection gear. Evade is key. You'll quickly discover that ”Evasion Tanks” are immensely worthwhile; especially since they are not prone to many of the debuffs that come with ”Protection Tanks” (Poison Especially) – you’re simply not getting hit after all!


Back Row Rogues (BRR)
MAX STR = Ranged Dmg (Rest VIT, no exceptions)
SKILLS: Max Throwing Weapon for one / Max Missile Weapon for other.
TRAITS: Athletic for Both / Head Hunter (Minotaur) for Throwing Rogue, Skilled for Missile Rogue.
RACE: Best – Minotaur & Human / Worst – Insectoid & Lizardman

Explained: NO! You do not need DEX for ranged weapons. Your ranged attacks either hit or they don’t; DEX is not a modifier to ranged attacks. STR is your dmg output on your ranged attacks (Attack Power) – so everything must go into STR. Rest simply goes to VIT as a buffer for the enemy AoE attacks later in the game. I recommend having one Minotaur BRR for the Throwing Rogue, and a Human for the Missile Rogue. Athletic will give them both better dmg output, Head Hunter will give the Throwing Minotaur more Attack Power per found Skull (Incredible powerful the more you find) , Skilled for the Missile Rogue simply helps reaching the higher tiers of Missile Weapons faster (lvl 32 Volley will make you smile with glee)

To sum up:
FRR (Tanks): The Dagger Expert / The Unarmed Expert
BRR (DPS): The Throwing Expert / The Missile Expert

---

My ideal party:

FRR: The "Tanks"
Nosolee Daggerdance Dagger Expert
Race: Lizardman. Traits: Agile & Evasive.
Stats: Max DEX, Rest VIT. Skills: +2 Dodge / +1 Daggers.
Level up: Dodge is primary, Daggers when you are "Evading Well"

Gusta the Brawler Unarmed Expert
Race: Lizardman. Traits: Agile & Fist Fighter.
Stats: Max DEX, Rest VIT. Skills: +2 Dodge / +1 Unarmed Combat.
Level up: Dodge is primary, Unarmed when you are "Evading Well"

BRR: The DPS
Bullseye Betty Throwing Expert
Race: Minotaur. Traits: Athletic & Head Hunter.
Stats: Max STR, Rest VIT. Skills: +1 Throwing Weapons.
Level up; Max Throwing Weapons!

Kourin the Archer Missile Expert
Race: Human. Traits: Athletic & Skilled.
Stats: Max STR, Rest VIT. Skills: +7 Missile Weapons.
Level up; Max Missile Weapons!

---

Tips:
* Level 1 start area - turn around and push rock button; grab the Lurker Boots and give them to your Unarmed Expert to boost his Evasion.
* Your Unarmed Expert can carry the Torch in one of his free hands.
* Your Dagger Expert should Carry a Shield.
* Save the Light Armor you find (Dodge will unlock proficiency)
* Save often, the beginning can be a little hard until you get high Evasion with your FRR.
* Strafe and Circle Hard Difficulty Enemies when possible.
* Always collect your projectiles and thrown weapons after use. ---

Try it!, and let me know how you enjoyed it!

Hey this look pretty gowd

I have a backrow minotaur rogue, who is aggressive and headhunter.
His only idea is to do max damage with assassination + maybe daggers some.
Have to say; even without skill allocation his rocks and other thrown weapons are epic since his lack of precision doesn't affect.

Oh, fourth guy is Air mage to do that invis combo.
Front line is just rogue clowns who dodge ^_^

About whole 3x or more rogues in general:
Epic speedruns ahead admiral.

No nerfs needed...
...
..
.
NO!

Insectoid Rogue, Unarmed
Insectoid Rogue, Unarmed
Minotaur Rogue, Unarmed, Assassination 12
Insectoid Mage, Air and Spellcraft

Yeah, next game I'm switching to 2 Lizardman Rogues in front, and maybe sub one for the Mage. I'll have to see if humping torches around is worth the hassle. Even if I don't let the Mage attack, ogres can't stand up to the Rogues for longer than the time five or six of their own attacks take.

Edit: Playing with the character generator, a Minotaur Mage (S19, D12, V14, W7, Spellcraft 5, Staff Defense, Head Hunter, Agile. Light spell and Spear) and 3 Lizardman Rogues (S10 [Raising Unarmed gets you the damage output], D18, V14, W9, Unarmed, Fist Fighter, Agile, [Backrow gets Assassination 12]) might turn out to be interesting.

I am loving unarmed, though. Damage and Accuracy >30 at character level 9? Yes, Please!

I don't have to worry about armor or weapon weights. However, the amount of food I'm carrying outweighs the rest of the items I have across the entire party. The minotaur isn't strong enough to carry all of it, and until I found enough containers, it wouldn't all fit on one character.

King Tulla, thanks for great party setting suggestion. I created mine according to your guidance and I like it very much. Currently I have all members on 9th level with evasion of FRRs equal 67 / 66 and BRRs able to perform double throwing / shooting. The game was pretty demanding on first levels (requiring lots of "manual evasion") but now it is awsome.

Thanks kisiel365!
So happy to have another shadowplayer amongst us!

You bring up a good point, I don’t think I remembered to add that the startup can be tough; especially if you are new to games like these- or new to games in general. I have added a “Notice” to the original post explaining this. Appreciated!

This is exactly what I did with the sole exception of an extra party member using daggers + lvl 12 assassination in the back row. it was indeed very very very effective. I only had trouble once magic enemies became commonplace.

Interesting setup, but why use points on dodge?
AFAIK it does not raise your evasion when leveled up, except for the occasional bonus. And fist-fighting offers a +20 evasion bonus at lvl30, which is more than what you get from dodge itself. Did I overlook something?

I am currently running with an unarmed Lizardman rogue (evasion + fist fighter) and he gets hit rarely, despite having only 2 points in dodge to get the +5 evasion bonus. Difficulty level is normal, but still ... I do not feel having the need for more evasion points right now, and enjoy the hard hitting you get from upping fist-fighting.

Thanks for your input friend!

Although putting some points into unarmed skill is tempting, I would recommend to stick to dodge. Unarmed FRR without high evasion would not survive many situations and getting 20 evasion at 30 skill level is not enough nor fast enough for me. As explained by King Tulla a purpose of FRRs is not dealing damage but avoiding it. So far I have invested 32 skill points in evasion for dagger FRR and 34 for unarmed one. Of course there are some drawbacks for this setup but I would say they are rather minor.

Have some more conclusions:
1. About small damage dealt by FRR: daggers with none or little skill points invested sucks (unarmed even more) and by the time you get evasion high enough your FRR are not able to catch up to common melee-oriented fighter builds, therefore at the beginning I prefer to put a weapon into unarmed FRR's hand.
2. Lack of mage is the most painful at the beginning when facing multiple enemies standing on the same field, however you can use bombs as a replacement for mage's area damage until BRRs develop their attacks. Unfortunately you can say bye to enchanting arrows / quarrel and you cannot compensate it.
3. In rare situations where you cannot fight enemies on your terms (trap, teleportation) BRRs sometimes die after performing a few attacks (they have to be resurrected using crystal) but they provide enough power to get the party to a corner / corridor / alcove and then FRRs are effectively blocking. So far only fighters challenge caused death of both BBRs and I had to finish the job using only FRRs.
4. Since most of team power is based on ranged attacks you have to watch your ammo carefully trying to step forward for a second after killing a monster to recover used ammo. This sometimes require more planning due to specific dungeon configuration. Running out of ammo can also happen during long fights so I usually switch between ranged weapons (crossbow / short bow for missile BRR and shuriken / throwing knife for throwing BRR).
5. BRRs deal very nice damage if you concentrate on one skill. Head hunter trait for throwing BRR is good choice. When you find new weapon it is better to stick to weaker ranged weapon with lots of ammo until you collect more ammo of the new kind. Converting enchanted missiles / quarrels in controlled situation will speed that process.
6. BRRs' load is pretty nice due to their high strength. They carry most of the team resources: lots of food, crates and heavy equipment. I equipped them with heavy armor (high protection, negative evasion) but maybe it is better to just stake on simple cloths (low protection, low evasion, saving load for other items).