Let's talk about Rogue

[Shneekey]

So, Rogue. Supposed to be providing a lot of damage and some trapspringing and lockpicking utility in most fantasy genre games. Bard's Tales games have traditionally not been kind to this archetype, however. For example, in the first BT game, Rogue was pretty much a sucker's bet. Even with the Remaster and new mechanics, it's still only 'meh'. Granted, Rogue was mandatory to kill the boss in one of the games, but it still felt more like a hindrance than a benefit.

So, how does it stack up in BT4?

Honestly? Mixed bag, really.

Probably the strongest reason to have a Rogue in the party is for sneaking to guarantee First Strike in any combat, barring a couple of plot-specific encounters that ambush you even if you are in stealth. Getting First Strike is absolutely huge, so for this reason alone, Rogue seems sound.

As far as looting goes, they are the only ones who can use lockpicks and master lockpicks to access certain chests. Given the random and generally lackluster rewards found in them, however, this isn't a particularly compelling reason to have a rogue in the party.

Treasure Sense is okay for your first run, but feels more like a 'noob tax' on concurrent runs after you generally know where everything is already. The one that gives you more cash in loot doesn't really generate enough extra cash to be worth the points spent.

Furthermore, at Master Thief, they can randomly steal the money back from the vendor when making purchases. If you both purchase and sell to the same vendor, you can actually put the vendor in the negatives. This can generate thousands of extra gold, plus the skill also provides stat bonuses in addition to the free stuff. How useful this is to you is a matter of debate, however. After Wyre, there's no further need for cash in the rest of the game.

Now we get to their combat role: damage. There's two main schools of thought for a rogue: Archer or Stabby Mc Stabface. For Archers, you have Loose Arrow, and you have volley. Volley in particular has the potential to hit multiple targets, although enemies have a chance of getting out of its way due to the one turn delay. For the stabbers, you have Storm of Blades for concentrated damage output. And to help both of these styles out, you have Strop to add significant damage to anything you care to do. On the face of things, this makes Rogue seem like quite an attractive damage dealer.

However, no man is an island, and no character is adventuring alone. Fighters, particularly with the Champion skill to give them bonus True damage based on their SP total, can easily rival Rogue's damage output, if not outright beat it. They don't get Volley, but they do get Sweeping Blow which does fundamentally the same thing but without a turn of delay. They also get Storm of Blades for single-target deletion.

In the early game, a stropping Rogue with Storm of Blades can absolutely delete any problems and significantly reduce the difficulty of many boss fights by putting out so much damage. However, around the time you hit level 15 or so, or about the time you find a certain Paladin in your travels, Fighters start shifting their damage output much higher and with higher defenses as well.

So, I leave it to the floor for discussion. Rogues: Worth it, or not?

[Kira]

Originally posted by Shneekey:

So, Rogue. Supposed to be providing a lot of damage and some trapspringing and lockpicking utility in most fantasy genre games. Bard's Tales games have traditionally not been kind to this archetype, however. For example, in the first BT game, Rogue was pretty much a sucker's bet. Even with the Remaster and new mechanics, it's still only 'meh'. Granted, Rogue was mandatory to kill the boss in one of the games, but it still felt more like a hindrance than a benefit.

Ok, I know it's basically OT here, but I did have a Rogue in my Bards Tale 1 play through, and she wasn't too bad. Trap skills were fairly soon maxed so she was saving spell points for my casters, and she was only killing an enemy every 2nd round as opposed to the Warrior and Paladin who killed an enemy every round, but sometimes there were particularly icky situations like certain casters at range that were made much easier by hiding and then critting at a distance. I felt that finishing the less dangerous fights a bit slower was not a bad price to pay for having an edge in some of the trickier fights. Altogether I did not regret having her in my team.

So, how does it stack up in BT4?

So. Before going any further, I feel an urge to point out how fundamentally different BT4 is from BT1 or honestly most other similar games due to how the Opportunity mechanic works. In BT4, even though you can create, recruit, level-up and equip individual characters, and you can change the party roster fairly freely (up to a certain point), a character's usefulness for the triumph of the party will depend as much on what role you assign to them in your head, as on their culture and archetype.

So very different builds might feel optimal based on not only the composition of the party, but also on the other characters' specific builds. It's like, you're given (up to) six characters to nurture, but in the end it almost doesn't matter who does what, as long as everything gets done. Like, you can have the same one character hog half of the party's Opportunity, and have the other characters support her, and it will still work. Or you can have multiple characters do multiple things, and vary who does what based on positioning, who has more health, that sort of thing.

Which is why a lot of direct comparisons for example between two melee damage dealers are not as straightforward as one might think.

Honestly? Mixed bag, really.

Probably the strongest reason to have a Rogue in the party is for sneaking to guarantee First Strike in any combat, barring a couple of plot-specific encounters that ambush you even if you are in stealth. Getting First Strike is absolutely huge, so for this reason alone, Rogue seems sound.

Stealth in BT4 is very powerful. We've all seen how useful the Hide in Shadows ability is on the Sneak skill, not only does it basically guarantee first strike in almost every fight you come across, but it also allows you to sneak past enemy groups if the situation demands. It is probably the single most impactful ability in the game.

However there's also the Shadow skill enabling Shadow Powder Bombs, and the Infiltrator skill that is simply busted. Did you know that you can actually place two rogues with the Infiltrator skill in the middle of two other characters each, to start the fight with every single character hiding in shadows, essentially making it impossible for the enemy group to target anyone in the team even if they have the first strike due to a scripted combat or being spotted. How's this for even more guaranteed first strike every single time?

I'd say that if all the Rogue had was these three stealth-based skills, she'd already be a worthy addition to any party.

As far as looting goes, they are the only ones who can use lockpicks and master lockpicks to access certain chests. Given the random and generally lackluster rewards found in them, however, this isn't a particularly compelling reason to have a rogue in the party.

Treasure Sense is okay for your first run, but feels more like a 'noob tax' on concurrent runs after you generally know where everything is already. The one that gives you more cash in loot doesn't really generate enough extra cash to be worth the points spent.

Furthermore, at Master Thief, they can randomly steal the money back from the vendor when making purchases. If you both purchase and sell to the same vendor, you can actually put the vendor in the negatives. This can generate thousands of extra gold, plus the skill also provides stat bonuses in addition to the free stuff. How useful this is to you is a matter of debate, however. After Wyre, there's no further need for cash in the rest of the game.

Now, in terms of explorations skills, I'd say Rogues are nice to have. I would feel terrible if I couldn't open any of the locked chests, even though I know that by the end of the game I'm going to be using the Elven/Dwarven weapons and wearing the Armor I found in Haernhold. I like Pirate because honestly I don't necessarily remember the location for all 400 treasure chests, despite multiple play throughs, but still, it's still the same random loot that is most likely not going to impact what my characters are wearing or using. I absolutely dislike Master Thief because I envision my party as a ragtag band of heroic adventurers, not some common criminals, so I deliberately not use it. That said, money really is not a concern beyond a certain point, so these skills are more flavor and completionist / exploration reward abilities than things that actually boost the party's power.

Now we get to their combat role: damage. There's two main schools of thought for a rogue: Archer or Stabby Mc Stabface. For Archers, you have Loose Arrow, and you have volley. Volley in particular has the potential to hit multiple targets, although enemies have a chance of getting out of its way due to the one turn delay. For the stabbers, you have Storm of Blades for concentrated damage output. And to help both of these styles out, you have Strop to add significant damage to anything you care to do. On the face of things, this makes Rogue seem like quite an attractive damage dealer.

However, no man is an island, and no character is adventuring alone. Fighters, particularly with the Champion skill to give them bonus True damage based on their SP total, can easily rival Rogue's damage output, if not outright beat it. They don't get Volley, but they do get Sweeping Blow which does fundamentally the same thing but without a turn of delay. They also get Storm of Blades for single-target deletion.

In the early game, a stropping Rogue with Storm of Blades can absolutely delete any problems and significantly reduce the difficulty of many boss fights by putting out so much damage. However, around the time you hit level 15 or so, or about the time you find a certain Paladin in your travels, Fighters start shifting their damage output much higher and with higher defenses as well.

So. While I do agree that in the early game, the Rogue is simply the best one-stop shop for cleaving through everything the game throws at you, I think there are a couple of more different Rogue builds in terms of combat skills, and also there are a couple of nuances that make it less obvious how a Fighter vs. Rogue damage race would go (in addition to the generic points I made above about how it's more important to look at party performance).

I'll start with the nuances. While it looks like the Rogues and Fighter Attack tabs are somewhat similar (because they both have Swords and Bows), Fighters have Greatswords, Axes and Blunt while the Rogue has Daggers. But, in terms of Critical skills, the Rogues actually have a Bow critical (combined with the dagger) at potential +75% damage.

What's actually in favor of the Fighter is the wider weapon selection. You can wield a two-handed weapon like the Plaguebearer or a high-strength bonus two-handed sword, and still have access to a decent off-hand or dual-wield another one-handed weapon. So the Fighter can boost strength slightly higher or access more diverse weapon abilities.

In terms of bonus damage, Fighters who are advanced into Paladins can get a bit of extra damage from Veteran. But this is not huge, even at 7 spell points you only do 21 True with it. In most fights it will be comparable to Razor Strops or Assassin bonus. But a Rogue using both will still get ahead on numbers. Not to mention that you need to expend resources in giving the spell points to the fighter, that you could have used for something else. Like either time and Chant or potions or for example a supporting practitioner using the Draining effect of Vorpal Plating when fighting magic-user enemies.

Now, onto the builds. Some of the builds I've used:
Slashy: Storm of Blades, Razor Strop, Sundering Smash, Passing Slash. Replace one with Hide in Shadows if only rogue. Between smart weapon choice and Assassin and high strength damage is consistent throughout the game. I'd go with Einarr or Baedish.

Shooty: Loose Arrow, Rain of Arrows, Hide in Shadows, Reckless Assault. With bow criticals and high strength and elven boots and a longbow, will probably deal more damage per Opportunity spent than any other build. Nice as Trow to make the shot fully free.

Stabby: Slinking Assault, Blood for Blood, Shiv, Razor Strop. Replace one with Hide in Shadows if only rogue. Use a sacraficial dagger and something nice (almost always dual-wielding). Einarr culture for bonus strength. The damage bonus on each attack is quite formidable, I mean hundreds of easy to target damage.

Slappy: Hide in Shadows, Coldcock, Change Fate, basic Focus Potion. Stun up to six enemies for three Opportunity, if you prefer. Requires advancement to Monk, I prefer Dwarf for this just because of how Change Fate doubles as a get-out-of-stun-free-card should you need it. If you want to, you can add the Vampiric Blade to allow opportunistic spell point recovery to fuel the Change Fate in the first turn.

Smithy: I often combine a lighter version of the above options with a crafting-heavy build. Maxing out the regular crafting skills, as well as getting the more important exploration skills, plus whatever I fancy from the Subterfuge tab.

So, I leave it to the floor for discussion. Rogues: Worth it, or not?

Ugh this ended up being a very long post... 😅

Anyway I'm glad for the topic, because I think Rogues are probably the most easily underrated Archetype in BT4.

Coincidentally, I almost never use the Fighter as a primary damage dealer. I find Guardian and Taunt to be simply to important to build my Fighter in any other way, than basically a high-Armor, enemy-manipulating tank. So more often than not I'll deal the bulk of my damage with members of the other three archetypes...

[Shneekey]

Originally posted by Kira:

Ok, I know it's basically OT here, but I did have a Rogue in my Bards Tale 1 play through, and she wasn't too bad. Trap skills were fairly soon maxed so she was saving spell points for my casters, and she was only killing an enemy every 2nd round as opposed to the Warrior and Paladin who killed an enemy every round, but sometimes there were particularly icky situations like certain casters at range that were made much easier by hiding and then critting at a distance. I felt that finishing the less dangerous fights a bit slower was not a bad price to pay for having an edge in some of the trickier fights. Altogether I did not regret having her in my team.

First off, thank you for your detailed and in-depth response.

It seems like you're playing the Remastered version of BT1, because Rogues didn't have a 'skill' in the original. They just had a concealed percentage chance (usually pretty low) to open a lock. And in exchange, they were weaker and more fragile than the other melee options. I would like to point out that Hunter exists, can equip a Bow and thus hit ranged opponents, can *crit* at range, thus Rogue is merely half of a Hunter, even under ideal situations. And even with 'maxed' skill, you're still likely to trigger traps to wipe the party in the back half of the game.

So. Before going any further, I feel an urge to point out how fundamentally different BT4 is from BT1 or honestly most other similar games due to how the Opportunity mechanic works. In BT4, even though you can create, recruit, level-up and equip individual characters, and you can change the party roster fairly freely (up to a certain point), a character's usefulness for the triumph of the party will depend as much on what role you assign to them in your head, as on their culture and archetype.

Most of the cultures are traps. Front line tanks want to be Dwarves, because later on you get plenty of enemies who start reorganizing your party, and dressing ranks takes time you don't want to spend. Back row typically wants to be Outlander, because immunity to DoT is really dang handy. None of the abilities any of the other races offer can compare to saying 'no' to entire swaths of game mechanics.

So very different builds might feel optimal based on not only the composition of the party, but also on the other characters' specific builds. It's like, you're given (up to) six characters to nurture, but in the end it almost doesn't matter who does what, as long as everything gets done. Like, you can have the same one character hog half of the party's Opportunity, and have the other characters support her, and it will still work. Or you can have multiple characters do multiple things, and vary who does what based on positioning, who has more health, that sort of thing.

Which is why a lot of direct comparisons for example between two melee damage dealers are not as straightforward as one might think.

I get what you are saying, but as a counterpoint, that only makes the comparison between rogue and fighter even stronger. They both effectively fill the same role, damage. Fighters just do so while also being decked out in full plate and having AC to severely mitigate damage, while Rogues just die.

Stealth in BT4 is very powerful. We've all seen how useful the Hide in Shadows ability is on the Sneak skill, not only does it basically guarantee first strike in almost every fight you come across, but it also allows you to sneak past enemy groups if the situation demands. It is probably the single most impactful ability in the game.

However there's also the Shadow skill enabling Shadow Powder Bombs, and the Infiltrator skill that is simply busted. Did you know that you can actually place two rogues with the Infiltrator skill in the middle of two other characters each, to start the fight with every single character hiding in shadows, essentially making it impossible for the enemy group to target anyone in the team even if they have the first strike due to a scripted combat or being spotted. How's this for even more guaranteed first strike every single time?

I'd say that if all the Rogue had was these three stealth-based skills, she'd already be a worthy addition to any party.

Agreed. Having a Rogue in the party for stealth is extremely powerful, even if his raw damage output wanes.

Now, in terms of explorations skills, I'd say Rogues are nice to have. I would feel terrible if I couldn't open any of the locked chests, even though I know that by the end of the game I'm going to be using the Elven/Dwarven weapons and wearing the Armor I found in Haernhold. I like Pirate because honestly I don't necessarily remember the location for all 400 treasure chests, despite multiple play throughs, but still, it's still the same random loot that is most likely not going to impact what my characters are wearing or using. I absolutely dislike Master Thief because I envision my party as a ragtag band of heroic adventurers, not some common criminals, so I deliberately not use it. That said, money really is not a concern beyond a certain point, so these skills are more flavor and completionist / exploration reward abilities than things that actually boost the party's power.

I also generally agree with everything here. Most of what you want isn't found in locked chests.

So. While I do agree that in the early game, the Rogue is simply the best one-stop shop for cleaving through everything the game throws at you, I think there are a couple of more different Rogue builds in terms of combat skills, and also there are a couple of nuances that make it less obvious how a Fighter vs. Rogue damage race would go (in addition to the generic points I made above about how it's more important to look at party performance).

I'll start with the nuances. While it looks like the Rogues and Fighter Attack tabs are somewhat similar (because they both have Swords and Bows), Fighters have Greatswords, Axes and Blunt while the Rogue has Daggers. But, in terms of Critical skills, the Rogues actually have a Bow critical (combined with the dagger) at potential +75% damage.

What's actually in favor of the Fighter is the wider weapon selection. You can wield a two-handed weapon like the Plaguebearer or a high-strength bonus two-handed sword, and still have access to a decent off-hand or dual-wield another one-handed weapon. So the Fighter can boost strength slightly higher or access more diverse weapon abilities.

Yes... but also no. Yes, a Fighter has a broader selection of things to equip, no that doesn't actually help when most of them suck. Most of my Fighters end up dual wielding a Longsword (the one with sunder and sweep bonuses) and Arming Sword, although if I can't find a decent Longsword (there actually isn't any blue longswords for sale anywhere in the game that I've been able to find) they've been known to dual wield arming swords and maces (for the extra AC, given they have as much AC as a shield plus bonus strength).

In terms of bonus damage, Fighters who are advanced into Paladins can get a bit of extra damage from Veteran. But this is not huge, even at 7 spell points you only do 21 True with it. In most fights it will be comparable to Razor Strops or Assassin bonus. But a Rogue using both will still get ahead on numbers. Not to mention that you need to expend resources in giving the spell points to the fighter, that you could have used for something else. Like either time and Chant or potions or for example a supporting practitioner using the Draining effect of Vorpal Plating when fighting magic-user enemies.

Using Arming Swords, they can get significantly more than seven spell points. I've had them reliably doing over thirty true damage per swing. And with Storm of Blades, that's an extra 90 damage to target. Same with Sweeping Blow, if you have three targets next to each other.

Fighters also have Taunt for arranging enemies into convenient locations so Practitioners don't have to be casting Wingardium Leviosa constantly.

Now, onto the builds. Some of the builds I've used:
Slashy: Storm of Blades, Razor Strop, Sundering Smash, Passing Slash. Replace one with Hide in Shadows if only rogue. Between smart weapon choice and Assassin and high strength damage is consistent throughout the game. I'd go with Einarr or Baedish.

I'd suggest Hide rather than Passing Slash anyway, simply because your first attack out of shadows gets bonus damage. It's also a way to hide then strop to avoid getting knocked out of strop. Also sometimes replace Sunder with All Out Assault, because if it is dead, it doesn't get to hit back.

I'd also suggest that both Einarr and Baedish aren't worth bothering with under any circumstances.

Shooty: Loose Arrow, Rain of Arrows, Hide in Shadows, Reckless Assault. With bow criticals and high strength and elven boots and a longbow, will probably deal more damage per Opportunity spent than any other build. Nice as Trow to make the shot fully free.

Do mind the one turn lag on Rain of Arrows, which can make it tricky to land. But yes, the Trow's opportunity refund is quite powerful, and why I've been known to keep Wringneck all throughout a game.

Stabby: Slinking Assault, Blood for Blood, Shiv, Razor Strop. Replace one with Hide in Shadows if only rogue. Use a sacraficial dagger and something nice (almost always dual-wielding). Einarr culture for bonus strength. The damage bonus on each attack is quite formidable, I mean hundreds of easy to target damage.

Generally far less damage output than Storm of Blades + Strop, which makes it... less than ideal. Honestly, daggers got done dirty in BT4.

Einar only gain strength if they get hit. Which, as a Rogue, you should *never* be doing. Which makes it a dud for any rogue. Either Outlander or Trow would be good options.

Slappy: Hide in Shadows, Coldcock, Change Fate, basic Focus Potion. Stun up to six enemies for three Opportunity, if you prefer. Requires advancement to Monk, I prefer Dwarf for this just because of how Change Fate doubles as a get-out-of-stun-free-card should you need it. If you want to, you can add the Vampiric Blade to allow opportunistic spell point recovery to fuel the Change Fate in the first turn.

How are you stunning more than one person every other turn with Coldcock?

Smithy: I often combine a lighter version of the above options with a crafting-heavy build. Maxing out the regular crafting skills, as well as getting the more important exploration skills, plus whatever I fancy from the Subterfuge tab.

Nah, Rogue's got too much to do to go crafting. Honestly, crafting in general is a complete bust and entirely pointless. You find more than enough trinkets and toys throughout your playthrough that you'll likely never use, there's zero need to actually craft any, barring booze for the bard which only the Bard can craft anyway.

Ugh this ended up being a very long post... 😅

Anyway I'm glad for the topic, because I think Rogues are probably the most easily underrated Archetype in BT4.

Coincidentally, I almost never use the Fighter as a primary damage dealer. I find Guardian and Taunt to be simply to important to build my Fighter in any other way, than basically a high-Armor, enemy-manipulating tank. So more often than not I'll deal the bulk of my damage with members of the other three archetypes...

Really?

Fighter dual wielding Longsword and Arming Sword with Veteran enabled. Storm of Blades, Sweeping Blow, Taunt, Sundering Smash. And maybe Chant if they've promoted to Paladin and have a Censor equipped. Or, very specifically, replace Taunt with Chant and have a Warhorn if you're wanting that chant/warhorn combo for the party.

They're still wearing plate for the AC to be highly resistant to physical damage. Basically, your slashy rogue but with veteran as the damage vehicle instead of strop.

The other thing is that the sword crits will allow a second swing, which is basically 100% bonus damage, which is more than crits with a bow or dagger get. Especially if you get a Shard Mace on a Fighter paired with an Arming Sword, so you get Keen and a guaranteed third swing. Three Storm of Blades in a row will make any rogue ever built blush with envy.

[Kira]

Originally posted by Shneekey:

First off, thank you for your detailed and in-depth response.

I had a lot of fun writing it, this is exactly the type of discussion I needed right now... 😊

It seems like you're playing the Remastered version of BT1, because Rogues didn't have a 'skill' in the original. They just had a concealed percentage chance (usually pretty low) to open a lock. And in exchange, they were weaker and more fragile than the other melee options. I would like to point out that Hunter exists, can equip a Bow and thus hit ranged opponents, can *crit* at range, thus Rogue is merely half of a Hunter, even under ideal situations. And even with 'maxed' skill, you're still likely to trigger traps to wipe the party in the back half of the game.

Yes, remastered version. I'm not sure I was already alive when the original came out. That said, what I read was that the original also had a skill system of sorts, but it was hidden from the player. The remastered shows the skills on a separate tab and it also shows the probability that you can use them successfully, which makes using the Rogue skills feel much less arbitrary.

In any case, as I wouldn't typically want to run three spell-casters, the Rogue is a logical choice for a third "back-row" character, especially since I really dislike the Hunter because whenever an enemy monster uses a mind control ability, it seems to hit my Hunter and then my Hunter seems to immediately insta-kill someone. So, no Hunters for me in BT1, I was actually very happy with my team of Lioslaith the Paladin, Dalgliesh the Fighter, Fiona the Bard, Wringneck the Rogue, The Green Lady and Crux the practitioners. 😅

I get what you are saying, but as a counterpoint, that only makes the comparison between rogue and fighter even stronger. They both effectively fill the same role, damage. Fighters just do so while also being decked out in full plate and having AC to severely mitigate damage, while Rogues just die.

I think this is exactly the type of character-centric thinking that BT4 tries to encourage players to move away from.

The question is, how will your team perform best? In a 6-strong party, will you want zero or one or two or three Rogues? I'd say zero would be very hard and inefficient, three might be a bit too much, so you'll probably have one or two. (I assume you want at least one member of each Archetype, which means at least 3 of the 6 characters are from the other Archetypes.)

If you have two, you can develop both as Infiltrators and start completely stealthed if you wish. Or leave a specific decoy unstealthed at the edge of the grid, forcing most opponent actions to be movements. But what else will you do with them? Probably pick two of the builds I listed. I typically went with Slappy-Smithy (Slappy really doesn't need any perks on the Attack tab to still be perfectly viable) and one of the others for my 2nd one who was also one of my main damage dealers, usually either Slashy or Stabby.

If you have only one Rogue, you'll probably pick one build, I'd recommend either Shooty or Slappy. But anything can work.

Yes... but also no. Yes, a Fighter has a broader selection of things to equip, no that doesn't actually help when most of them suck. Most of my Fighters end up dual wielding a Longsword (the one with sunder and sweep bonuses) and Arming Sword, although if I can't find a decent Longsword (there actually isn't any blue longswords for sale anywhere in the game that I've been able to find) they've been known to dual wield arming swords and maces (for the extra AC, given they have as much AC as a shield plus bonus strength).

Well, again, it depends on what you want your Fighters to do.

I had an Elven Paladin in one party who was a sword wielder and relied on Flurry of Blades and other sword skills to deal a fairly high amount of damage as a mainly single-target damage dealer and armor-breaker. She was probably the highest damage-potential Fighter of all the different Fighter builds I've ever used in any of my teams.

BUT I wouldn't say she was the best Fighter I ever had, from a team effectiveness point of view. I had several Blunt users who proved very useful in pushing enemies into strategic tiles (combined with Taunt, it gives a lot of control over enemy formation). I also had an Axe user, who was able to inflict Bleeding, Poison and Rend with the same attack. I had tanks, healers, I think the only thing I never did was build a Fighter as a pure Archer.

When it comes to pure damage, Bards, Practitioners and Rogues can also deal a ton of damage, each in their own ways, and damage gets especially high when they combine their skills and support each-other. But only a Fighter can pull enemies with a free action, or transfer damage to himself and then tank it. I'd very much dislike to compromise these abilities by doing something the other characters can easily do.

I'd also suggest that both Einarr and Baedish aren't worth bothering with under any circumstances.

Well, that's not how I play. 😁 I cherish each culture for their unique abilities and I try to build a colorful team that really benefits from each character's culture.

Maybe it should merit its own separate discussion, but suffice to say here that both Einarr and Baedish characters have proven to be excellent in some of my teams and I'd hazard a guess that there is no universal rule about what type of culture you need to use for something, I'd rather say that if you know what you're doing, you can make pretty much any culture's bonus be valuable to what you're doing.

For example, here's this bit:

Einar only gain strength if they get hit. Which, as a Rogue, you should *never* be doing. Which makes it a dud for any rogue. Either Outlander or Trow would be good options.

Einarr Rogues using Blood for Blood with a Sacrificial Dagger can safely trigger the strength bonus almost for free. (The same is partly true for Einarr Practitioners, they do have the same skill, but I've generally had less success with them this way due to diverse reasons.) If you have any way of healing - say, a Health Potion, or Sanctuary Score, not to mention Flesh Healing - or, you happen to be a Monk who can heal themselves whenever they attack, you can keep this up almost indefinitely (you will get to a point eventually when the 25% self-inflicted damage would kill you, when the strength bonus is too high, but at that point it's probably safe to stop using Blood for Blood anyway).

An Einarr Fighter can stand in the middle (even in the back row honestly) and use Guardian to absorb damage from the other characters - even if she takes no damage due to Armor reducing it, each hit counts for another stack of strength bonus.

And well I could go into what the Einarr Bard can do with Kael's Rudiments, but I think there's no need... 😁

Trow are very powerful because they can reclaim precious Opportunity. But you don't usually want more than one (maximum two) because they can only trigger this effect once per turn. A party of six Trow will still only get one Opportunity. I love a Trow Shooty because that seems to be the most reliable build that gets the kill and gets the opportunity back. But I've also used a Trow Practitioner and a Trow Bard (I think I never used a Trow Fighter).

How are you stunning more than one person every other turn with Coldcock?

Use Change Fate to spread the Stun to up to five adjacent enemies.

Nah, Rogue's got too much to do to go crafting. Honestly, crafting in general is a complete bust and entirely pointless. You find more than enough trinkets and toys throughout your playthrough that you'll likely never use, there's zero need to actually craft any, barring booze for the bard which only the Bard can craft anyway.

I find certain crafted items (Focus potions, Shadow powder bomb, Caltrops) extremely useful. Also some situationally useful items like the deployable barricade is amazing early on.

Really?

Fighter dual wielding Longsword and Arming Sword with Veteran enabled. Storm of Blades, Sweeping Blow, Taunt, Sundering Smash. And maybe Chant if they've promoted to Paladin and have a Censor equipped. Or, very specifically, replace Taunt with Chant and have a Warhorn if you're wanting that chant/warhorn combo for the party.

They're still wearing plate for the AC to be highly resistant to physical damage. Basically, your slashy rogue but with veteran as the damage vehicle instead of strop.

The other thing is that the sword crits will allow a second swing, which is basically 100% bonus damage, which is more than crits with a bow or dagger get. Especially if you get a Shard Mace on a Fighter paired with an Arming Sword, so you get Keen and a guaranteed third swing. Three Storm of Blades in a row will make any rogue ever built blush with envy.

If you have all three Bow/Dagger Critical skills on a Rogue, she'll have a 30% chance to deal 75% extra damage with her attack. So if you want to average it out you'd probably say something like, the damage is - on average - +22.5%. So you spend an Opportunity and spend the cooldown of the attack and deal 122.5% of what's written on the attack (not counting Assassin, Razor Strop or any other bonus).

On the sword the three perks give you a 40% chance to reset the cooldown, and (50% of the 40% so 20%) chance to refund the Opportunity. This is a bit harder to quantify. I'd say that depending on how many alternative attacks you have lined up, the Sword critical will be worth somewhere between a 20% and 40% bonus - if you have good alternatives, it'll be just the 20%, really, because you don't care that much about the cooldown if there are two other damage dealers waiting for their turn.

From experience, both types of criticals can fire off in a way that don't give you a big advantage. On the Sword you really want the Flurry of Blows to get the cooldown refund. On the Dagger Critical, if you're anyway killing the enemy, the bonus damage won't do much.

The reason why i think the Sword critical has a bit more potential to be spectacular is that every once in a while you get back-to-back criticals and you can chain several attacks. Also as soon as you get a Keen weapon (like the Peeler happens to be) you can get lovely surprises even if the chance is very low.

That said, in the early mid-game the Honed Sower of Seeds on a Practitioner is what gave me the most frequent honed criticals. 😀