(To clarify, when I say "pure rogue" I mean "only rogue skills.") I usually play warrior-heavy (although not pure) melee builds that focus on damage and defense (blocking/damage absorption). This is the build I am playing at the moment: Macery Dual Wielding Artful Dodging Burglary Archaeology Smithing Battle Geology The three middle skills are rogue skills; I have found both Burglary and Archaeology to be very useful--almost indispensable--and I'm experimenting with Artful Dodging. However, I've been thinking of moving away from warrior skills and trying an all-rogue build. Here is what I have so far in terms of solid choices: Daggers Burglary Tinkering Daggers being the only Rogue melee weapon skill, I figure this is a given, even though I've never played with Daggers before. Burglary is one of my favorite trees of all time--every skill, with the possible exception of Lockup, is extremely useful (and Lucky Pick will be even more useful once it is fixed). And Tinkering also seems an obvious choice, since it is the only rogue crafting skill. I really like to craft, and it seems like there would be a lot of wasted potential if I didn't have at least one crafting skill. The remainder of my skill set, though, is still up in the air. Here are the six options I am considering for the final four slots: Archaeology Artful Dodger Perception Assassination Rogue Scientist Paranormal Investigator Archaeology is also one of my favorite skill trees, primarily for It Belongs In A Museum. With the amount of useless artifacts I pick up over the course of a game, the XP bonuses end up being incredible. The rest of the tree is also nice, especially if you're going to use Anvils of Krong a lot, but in my experience the benefits of the anvils tend to even out, since the curses are generally much worse than the benefits. So I'm a bit ambivalent about the anvils. But the tree is worth it just for IBIAM. (In my current game, I chose IBIAM early on and haven't touched the tree since.) Artful Dodger might be the weakest tree of the bunch, but I take it for the third skill, which is a very handy (relatively) early teleport. Burglary obviously has a better one, but it's the capstone, so it takes a while for it to come into play. (Again, in my current game I got Knightly Leap in quick fashion and haven't touched the tree since.) I've also played with Perception before, which I like for its handy bonuses and all the extra loot you end up getting. I've never actually reached the capstone in this tree, though--generally I get up to the fourth or fifth skill here. The remaining three skill trees are trees I have never played with before, but they all sound interesting. Assassination seems to have some nice passive abilities, Rogue Scientist looks to be a lot of fun and would also open up some crafting options, and Paranormal Investigator is attractive for Alien Autopsy (in the original game, I had no problem finding the recipes I wanted, but with the expansion packs and increased number of recipes, it has been harder to come by the good ones; then again, AA is the fifth skill in the tree...). I'm conflicted here. I suspect that Artful Dodger is the weakest choice, but Knightly Leap may end up being even more important for a weaker rogue character. I would also like to wean myself off Archaeology, just for variety's sake, but it's so hard to give up all that extra XP! Any advice/opinions/anecdotes about these skills would be welcome. (And while I'm here, this is a bit embarrassing, but... I have figured out what "proc" means, but I'm at a loss as to what it stands for. Is this a standard term that I just don't know, or is it specific to Dredmor? Anyone want to enlighten me?)
Daggers Burglary Tinkering Archery Rogue Scientist Paranormal Investigator Piracy Just an off-the-cuff idea. Swashbuckling+Clockwork Reflexes can work over a small horde all by itself. 1 from Paranormal Investigator and 2 from Rogue Scientist will let you craft all the potions, including the almighty Potion of Replenishment, and if you find a Potion of Alchemical Inspiration, you can even craft the even-almightier Noxious Brimstone Flasks. Tinkering + Archery = death from afar. It's a build that will involve a lot of avoiding combat and a lot of careful crafting, but it's got enough tricks and enough utility to take you all the way.
Thanks for the reply! I love me some crafting, and the whole idea of this was to get away from just wading in with my maces to lay waste to the masses, so this sounds intriguing! I wrote off Archery a long time ago after reading about how useless it was--should I give it another look? And Piracy is a skill I have looked at as well, but I guess I never looked at it too closely. All of the skills do indeed seem quite useful!
Right -- I forgot that the new weapon skills aren't public yet. If you're comfortable replacing your core files, go here. Find your Dungeons of Dredmor/Game directory. Rename skillDB.xml, spellDB.xml, manTemplateDB.xml all to <whatever>.old, and then download the new files and put them in the directory. Then copy the Skills folder from that thread into your existing Dungeons of Dredmor/Skills folder. The result will be the beta version of the new weapons skills, including a much-improved Archery, in your game. Then you can go to town as suggested.
Ah, I see. I've never replaced core game files before, but it doesn't look like it should be that much of a problem, since they're just xml files. I took a look at your design document for Archery, and it does indeed look more appealing than the original skill. Just for fun, I started a game last night with your suggested list of skills, but I replaced Archery with Perception. In the first room I opened up I encountered two diggles and nearly died trying to go toe-to-toe with them--old ways die hard, I guess. Then I discovered what a handy skill Liechtenaur's Switcheroo is, and my bacon was saved. It was rough not having ranged weapons to start with and being forced to run around poking people with a shiv, but then I found a store, bought myself the lowest-level crossbow, and started collecting/making bolts (along with a growing pile of softballs that I built up by yoinking them from vending machines). That gave me a little breathing room, and has put me out of immediate danger of dying (so far). (I'm playing on DM, by the way.) Question: what will replacing the core game files do to existing saves? That is, if I have a game already in play with skills that have been changed in the new files, what will happen?
In theory, you should be able to get away with it. I believe replacing core skills on the fly only breaks saves if you do something drastic like have more/less total skill levels, or you have a skill on your skillbar that the new version of the skill doesn't offer. That said, i wouldn't try it without being 100% willing to watch your old save die and start over.
Well, I'm not married to old saves... but then again I don't think I will have too much time to play in the near future anyway, so I might hold off.
The saves are touched only if you load them. That said, the essence's rebalance is 100% safe: I've loaded a very old character (my only winning one) with the changes and it didn't die from dungeon collapse. And that save was pre-YHTNTEP. It was still a playername and bitmap_playername save game, so a very old one in comparison. And as I said, it just loaded good. Like other minor and without too may merits characters, which didn't die with the conversion. Do a favor to yourself and download it, suddently no more useless skills (at least for core dlc-less game, but we are working on werediggle too, and there are some minor tweaks from essence to other skills). Yeah, after all, no more useless skills regarding physical combat. Anyway, you can just back up your save to be sure, just copy into another folder your documents/gaslamp games/dungeons of dredmor/characterfolder and it will live through crashes and things.
Well, you've convinced me. I don't really care too much about old saves anyway--I don't know how many games I have started and then not finished. My main mace-wielding character (mentioned in the first post) is on dungeon level 8 now, I think, but I was getting a little tired of playing similar characters anyway. The new archery skill does sound like it will be fun, and it should make early survival easier--I'll have to give it a shot.
Give it another possibility with the essence rebalance. You will not believe how much funny weapon skills are now! Also, if you like those changes or not, be ready to give us some feedback.