Eldritch Scoundrel tips

[Striven]

I've been trying to find info about eldritch scoundrel by googling multiple reddit threads, but seem to run into a problem that these conversations seem to mostly just focus on arguing is the class good or bad.
I have not seen any attribute allocation tips or even what feats or spells aside from the usual Shield, Mage Armor, Blur & Mirror Image.
Anyone have any info on what feats or spells are useful or rogue injuries?

[Yannir]

There's kinda no point in making an Eldritch Scoundrel since you get Woljif who has a point buy of 32. He's basically a better Eldritch Scoundrel than you can make as a MC with a point buy of 25. Unless you want to do something different than DW Daggers. Other than that he's one of the best built Companions you get.

As for builds and playstyle I just treat ES as a melee class. Just buff up before you go. I just give them a Quicken Metamagic Rod, so they can fling around spells in combat without worrying about AoOs.

As for Talents, I'm not sure. I like to pick up Crippling Strike and Dispelling Attack but not sure if those are good, particularly the Dispelling. The CL seems low, and I'm not sure how you could raise it.

[Babbles]

I like the Bewildering injury thing at level 4, it gives a -2AC to enemies for all the party and a further -2AC for the ES. If you keep going in ES it goes all the was up to -8 I think.

One of the Archery builds popular in Kingmaker was 8 ES, 2 EA then 10 Arcane Trikster.

Also in Wrath I have made Wolly-J a level 4 ES then 16 Skald - he likes to tell stories, after all :)

I also will second Crippling Strike, with an Arcane Trickster Nenio with a Loremaster level for Rogue Trick, Greybor, maybe Delamere if you are Lich you can do a lot of STR damage every round. It is *super* carthitic to finally hurt the enemies stats for once :)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2794589862

[Striven]

Is there any point taking any of the ray spells or any of the offensive spells?
I was thinking of making my character TWF ES and speccing Woljif more into the Arcane Trickster route.
Also i remember something about being able to cause injuries with spells before engaging in melee?

[MjKorz]

Originally posted by Striven:

Is there any point taking any of the ray spells or any of the offensive spells?

No. Those spells only really work on highly specialized full arcane caster builds. Your damage will be pitiful with rays and you will never beat saves reliably with DC spells.

There is absolutely no point in playing an Eldritch Scoundrel in this game, because Woljif already exists. Others might say that you can specc Woljif into something else, but that's the equivalent of assembling a trolley out of a breadloaf: you can, but it's pointless and it will never be good. The 3 levels Woljif loses as an Eldritch Scoundrel will always hurt him, if you want to make him something other than an Eldritch Scoundrel even if you want to make him a ray caster (because Arcane Trickster is bad compared to a proper ray caster that does not care about sneak attacks).

[Yannir]

Originally posted by Striven:

Is there any point taking any of the ray spells or any of the offensive spells?
I was thinking of making my character TWF ES and speccing Woljif more into the Arcane Trickster route.
Also i remember something about being able to cause injuries with spells before engaging in melee?

Well, Ray spells can likely be used to apply Rogue Talents like Crippling Strike, Bewildering Injury, etc. The only requirement is hitting sneak attack so it should work but can't verify. On some, not all. Some do specify it needs to be a melee Sneak Attack.

[sbudy]

Sorry if this is not useful for the OP but it's just my two cents regarding the class:

The arcane scoundrel is awesome at low levels and nearly useless at high levels (except for buffs and traps, that is). It's the modern equivalent of fighter/mage/thief. True, even high level Woljif can finish lot of weak-standard enemies quickly, but in the boss fights or the scripted fights at the last part of the game he'd rarely hit anything and his spells rarely pass any serious spell resistance. You take him mainly for the buffs and laughs.

[TamTroll]

Originally posted by Yannir:

There's kinda no point in making an Eldritch Scoundrel since you get Woljif who has a point buy of 32. He's basically a better Eldritch Scoundrel than you can make as a MC with a point buy of 25. Unless you want to do something different than DW Daggers. Other than that he's one of the best built Companions you get.

Re: Woljif
To be fair, he kinda buggers off during the gargoyle attack. So having an actually reliable rogue who doesn't bail on the crusade couldn't hurt.

[gamers.txt]

On a rare occasion I disagree with MjKorz

Eldritch Scoundrel 16/Instinctual Warrior 4 or Eldritch Scoundrel 16/Traditional monk 1/Mutation Warrior 3 are some of the strongest and most resilient melee characters you can make.

7/19/14/14/16/7 Human

Just make sure you go with a two handed dex weapon for big hits at 1.5x dex to damage. Dual wielding is a trap imo since the feats really don't stack up and sneak attack is peanuts later on. ECB/estoc will net you a stupid crit range from start to finish.

AC is enough to Last Azlanti Hard difficulty as a melee fighter from start to finish, and preforms fine on unfair. You can crack 100AC by endgame and something like AC32-35 in the shield maze iirc.

Ignore magic except for buffing and focus on hitting things - You really want to go Demon path for the AB bonuses and AC debuffs to help your AB out of the doldrums.

[Amoc]

Yeah I think if you treat E Scoundrel as a more survivable, but slightly less damaging rogue, you're set. He's a decent off-tank to keep trash off your squishies, and with Archmage armor and pumping dex you can get his AC pretty high.

He can do some buffing for your party, self-buff himself with mage armor, shield, blur etc, and then just lay on the dual wield sneak attacks or go after the enemy's back line.

He's definitely one of the better companions in the game, IMO, though I respec every single companion down to 25-point buys with mods.

The non-full progression casters are always candidates for multi-classing too, as has already been explained, but if you're going to min-max like that, I wouldn't pick scoundrel in the first place.

[Super Cosmic Space Magnet]

Eldritch Scoundrel is alright - especially since it learns the almighty Haste spell, and Archmage Armour is way better than wearing armour. The problem I find is that it has two almost entirely wasted Weapon Finesse perks later on, and doesn't really get any jazzy stuff beyond its spellcasting progression. Taking a prestige class that allows for it to keep progressing its spells, or just stopping outright once you get Haste, seems like the way to go imo.

The class is wonderful up to level 10, then it's definitely worth multiclassing away from. Arcane Trickster, Loremaster, or perhaps even Dragon Disciple all seem decent. Or just go Slayer since you're not that interested in the fifth and sixth level spells anyway.

Also, I think it's important to clarify whether the question is about the class or about Woljif. It can be difficult to disentangle the two.

[Striven]

Originally posted by gamers.txt:

On a rare occasion I disagree with MjKorz

Eldritch Scoundrel 16/Instinctual Warrior 4 or Eldritch Scoundrel 16/Traditional monk 1/Mutation Warrior 3 are some of the strongest and most resilient melee characters you can make.

7/19/14/14/16/7 Human

Just make sure you go with a two handed dex weapon for big hits at 1.5x dex to damage. Dual wielding is a trap imo since the feats really don't stack up and sneak attack is peanuts later on. ECB/estoc will net you a stupid crit range from start to finish.

AC is enough to Last Azlanti Hard difficulty as a melee fighter from start to finish, and preforms fine on unfair. You can crack 100AC by endgame and something like AC32-35 in the shield maze iirc.

Ignore magic except for buffing and focus on hitting things - You really want to go Demon path for the AB bonuses and AC debuffs to help your AB out of the doldrums.

Are ECB and Estoc the only good Dex weapon choices for Two-Handed?
Also what sort of feats would i be looking at? Crane line of feats and Imrpoved Critical, maybe weapon focus?

[Striven]

Originally posted by Super Cosmic Space Magnet:

Eldritch Scoundrel is alright - especially since it learns the almighty Haste spell, and Archmage Armour is way better than wearing armour. The problem I find is that it has two almost entirely wasted Weapon Finesse perks later on, and doesn't really get any jazzy stuff beyond its spellcasting progression. Taking a prestige class that allows for it to keep progressing its spells, or just stopping outright once you get Haste, seems like the way to go imo.

The class is wonderful up to level 10, then it's definitely worth multiclassing away from. Arcane Trickster, Loremaster, or perhaps even Dragon Disciple all seem decent. Or just go Slayer since you're not that interested in the fifth and sixth level spells anyway.

Also, I think it's important to clarify whether the question is about the class or about Woljif. It can be difficult to disentangle the two.

This is about the MC. I know Woljif is good as eldritch Scoundrel, but i've already made him that in many playthroughs before and look to try arcane trickster next for him for variety.
Also i'm playing on daring so i don't need uber min/max builds that would be over kill anyway.
Just looking more of what the class does well or what it could do well.

[Super Cosmic Space Magnet]

Well, at least that means you don't have to worry about your character leaving the party lol - but unfortunately all the other downsides still apply. The class really isn't offering you much after you unlock third level spells at level 7. At level 10 you get one Advanced Rogue talent, but there's literally nothing after that worth progressing towards. It's really just a question of how much do you want to put into Eldritch Scoundrel for flavour purposes before multiclassing into something else.

The big upside of being an Eldritch Scoundrel is taking the Archmage Armour mythic perk. This means with your natural dex and your mage armour, you'll end up with super duper high AC. It also means you only need 13 Int, so you can pour absolutely everything else into your other stats.

Have you considered playing as an Eldritch Archer Magus? They have similar spell progression as the Eldritch Scoundrel and also fill that nice Dex/Int vibe, but without the need to skill into something else. Also, unlike the Scoundrel, they can become a pretty monstrous dps creature when they start blasting Scorching Rays and later Hellfire Rays through their bows.

[Amoc]

I think if you want to go Arcane Trickster (which really needs a 10-level investment for Surprise Spells), you may as well stick to a full-progression arcane caster and focus on ray spells and spell pen.

Level 9 spells, IMO, are worth a lot more than the sneak dice on a scoundrel, and the whole point of Trickster is to be able to add sneak dice to ranged attacks and ray spells. Getting the high-level rays like Hellfire , Elemental Assessor or Polar Ray etc ASAP is worth more IMO than three sneak attack dice from Scoundrel.

Eldritch Archer Magus is another option with Trickster, where you're at least leveraging the impromptu sneak attack mechanic for trickster. I still think you're better off just sticking with a full caster, but at least this one makes a lot of sense.

[Striven]

Originally posted by Super Cosmic Space Magnet:

Well, at least that means you don't have to worry about your character leaving the party lol - but unfortunately all the other downsides still apply. The class really isn't offering you much after you unlock third level spells at level 7. At level 10 you get one Advanced Rogue talent, but there's literally nothing after that worth progressing towards. It's really just a question of how much do you want to put into Eldritch Scoundrel for flavour purposes before multiclassing into something else.

The big upside of being an Eldritch Scoundrel is taking the Archmage Armour mythic perk. This means with your natural dex and your mage armour, you'll end up with super duper high AC. It also means you only need 13 Int, so you can pour absolutely everything else into your other stats.

Have you considered playing as an Eldritch Archer Magus? They have similar spell progression as the Eldritch Scoundrel and also fill that nice Dex/Int vibe, but without the need to skill into something else. Also, unlike the Scoundrel, they can become a pretty monstrous dps creature when they start blasting Scorching Rays and later Hellfire Rays through their bows.

I would prefer to keep this character more melee focused. I have no problem multiclassing if the class hits it's peak at certain point.