Which weapon best for picker?

[velvetomatoe]

I've been playing a friends Rogue and he's great at hiding/ambushing but only 2x in picking/disarming and no spells yet so sucks at picking. I'm toying with the idea of rolling a pure lockpicking rogue and going 3x on percep, disarm and picking.

What weapon would be best for this? I've read ranged is tp efficient with the 3x percep but seems the best ranged users are hiders. Is it necessary to train hiding to do that? I think anything less than 2x in hiding and it won't be a viable option. Seems TWC again is best suited to hiders due to the DS factor.

I like the idea of no hiding/ambushing at all and sinking the TP into using blunt and board, heavy armor and cmans. Is this option viable for a rogue? Any thoughts would be great.

velvetomatoe

[Stunseed]

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX (at level 45), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 130 35
Combat Maneuvers...................| 156 56
Ranged Weapons.....................| 194 94
Ambush.............................| 194 94
Physical Fitness...................| 147 47
Dodging............................| 147 47
Harness Power......................| 50 10
Disarming Traps....................| 241 141
Picking Locks......................| 241 141
Stalking and Hiding................| 194 94
Perception.........................| 194 94
Climbing...........................| 120 30
Swimming...........................| 120 30
Pickpocketing......................| 194 94

Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 4

Archer/Locksmith.

[Davenshire]

From my exp ranged works best with tripling picking and getting the lores the earliest. You can't really pull off any other build strongly until yer much older.

[Artha]

When my rogue was in his archery stage, I had 2 or 2.5x picking just because I didn't have anywhere else worthwhile to put the points.

[LMingrone]

As long as you're not a moron like me and make an exclusively picking GNOME. It is kind of fun to get all your exp from box picking...hahahah.

[serra7965]

(at level 29), your base skill bonuses, ranks and goals are:
Skill Name | Actual Actual
| Bonus Ranks Goals In-Game Time to Goal
Armor Use..........................| 120 30 30
Shield Use.........................| 160 60 60
Edged Weapons......................| 160 60 60
Ambush.............................| 153 53 53
Physical Fitness...................| 120 30 30
Dodging............................| 160 60 60
Arcane Symbols.....................| 90 20 20
Magic Item Use.....................| 70 15 15
Disarming Traps....................| 190 90 90
Picking Locks......................| 190 90 90
Stalking and Hiding................| 160 60 60
Perception.........................| 175 75 75
Climbing...........................| 70 15 15
Swimming...........................| 50 10 10

Level 0 Stats for xxx, Dark Elf Rogue

Strength (STR): 75
Constitution (CON): 70
Dexterity (DEX): 85
Agility (AGI): 80
Discipline (DIS): 90
Aura (AUR): 90
Logic (LOG): 55
Intuition (INT): 55
Wisdom (WIS): 40
Influence (INF): 20

Race: Dark Elf Profession: Rogue (not shown)
Gender: Female Expr: 1011094 Level: 29
Normal (Bonus) ... Enhanced (Bonus)
Strength (STR): 84 (17) ... 84 (17)
Constitution (CON): 78 (9) ... 78 (9)
Dexterity (DEX): 96 (33) ... 96 (33)
Agility (AGI): 94 (27) ... 94 (27)
Discipline (DIS): 95 (12) ... 95 (12)
Aura (AUR): 94 (32) ... 94 (32)
Logic (LOG): 66 (8) ... 66 (8)
Intuition (INT): 69 (14) ... 69 (14)
Wisdom (WIS): 47 (4) ... 47 (4)
Influence (INF): 39 (-10) ... 39 (-10)
Mana: 7 Silver: 0

I wish I would have made my wisdom higher but 3x in picking/disarm and being able to cast from scrolls have been fine for me. Sure it doesn't give you the full benefit as if I knew the spell but it gives me some. I just trained up to brig and that is as far as I will go. I just fixed skills but still wasn't able to go to 3x in perception but 2.5 is serving me nicely at the moment. Also I haven't been able to fully double in ambush but hunting a bit below my level I have succeeded well in hitting my target. Now that I am fully trained in my brig I will have more TPs to put towards getting doubled in ambush and perception (I hope). Before fixskills I was 2.5x in picking/disarm and was picking stone giants easily....maybe they just have easy boxes.

As a thought you might want to roll up first as double in lockpicking and putting more into hunting skills. You can pick your own boxes and at level 15 or 20 you can fixskills to a pure picker or like me able to hunt level or below.

Of course this is not yet a tried and true method as I have fixskills by migration about a month ago. I still have to play around with the .xls trainer to see if I am where I want to be as far as being able to reach 3x perception and 2x ambush. Since they are cheap I should be able to catch up. Just wanted to give you an example of what I was doing.

[Asha]

Ranged for the perception with disarming.
Brawling cos it's cheap.

[Gan]

Ganalon (at level 87), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 130 35
Combat Maneuvers...................| 194 94
Ranged Weapons.....................| 278 178
Ambush.............................| 278 178
Physical Fitness...................| 187 87
Dodging............................| 240 140
Arcane Symbols.....................| 122 31
Magic Item Use.....................| 50 10
Harness Power......................| 45 9
Disarming Traps....................| 361 261
Picking Locks......................| 365 265
Stalking and Hiding................| 367 267
Perception.........................| 367 267
Climbing...........................| 105 25
Swimming...........................| 124 32
Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 4
(Use SKILLS BASE to display unmodified ranks and goals)

Name: Ganalon O'Grady Race: Human Profession: Rogue (shown as: Master Rogue)
Gender: Male Age: 42 Expr: 6246719 Level: 87
Normal (Bonus) ... Enhanced (Bonus)
Strength (STR): 83 (21) ... 83 (21)
Constitution (CON): 73 (11) ... 73 (11)
Dexterity (DEX): 100 (25) ... 100 (25)
Agility (AGI): 100 (25) ... 100 (25)
Discipline (DIS): 94 (22) ... 94 (22)
Aura (AUR): 100 (25) ... 100 (25)
Logic (LOG): 94 (27) ... 94 (27)
Intuition (INT): 86 (23) ... 86 (23)
Wisdom (WIS): 100 (25) ... 100 (25)
Influence (INF): 100 (25) ... 100 (25)
Mana: 37 Silver: 0

>info start
Level 0 Stats for Ganalon, Human Rogue
Strength (STR): 25
Constitution (CON): 20
Dexterity (DEX): 91
Agility (AGI): 80
Discipline (DIS): 70
Aura (AUR): 89
Logic (LOG): 70
Intuition (INT): 33
Wisdom (WIS): 94
Influence (INF): 88

Most difficult lock picked: -1230
Most difficult trap disarmed: -479

Level: 87 Deeds: 38
Experience: 6246719 Death's Sting: None
Exp. until next: 8781 Recent Deaths: 0
Mental TPs: 0 Fame: 26055004
Physical TPs: 52 Mana: 37/37 max
(266 Phy converted to Mnt)

[Renian]

Definitely go with ranged weapons if you are going to have 3x perception. That'll help your aimed shots with your bow.

[velvetomatoe]

Thanks for all the insight. I think I'm gonna go with Ranged and the whole stalk/hide thing. Here's my plan as it looks on paper. Let me know if anyone sees any problems, especially with stat placement. I suck at stats even with spreadsheets:

Human Rogue
STR 70
CON 70
DEX 75
AGL 72
DIS 80
AUR 70
LOG 66
INT 65
WIS 68
INF 24

Gives me:
Armor Use (1.0X)
Ranged Weapons (2.0X)
Combat Maneuvers (1.0X)
Ambush (2.0X)
Physical Fitness (1.0X)
Dodging (2.0X)
Climbing (0.5X)
Swimming (0.5X)
Disarm Traps (3.0X)
Picking Locks (3.0X)
Stalking and Hiding (2.0X)
Perception (3.0X)
Arcane Symbols (0.5X) (til 20 ranks)
Harness Power (0.1X) (eventual 10 ranks)

Spells where necessary, but have a wizard who can imbed 403/404 into amulets so not a priority.

Thanks again for the input and look forward to any suggestions.

velvetomatoe

[Renian]

I have no idea why you would need 10 ranks of Harness Power.

Other than that it looks fine. You may want to consider being a Giant so you can shoot in three seconds aimed with a longbow + surge of strength, but do what you want for RP.

[Gan]

Mana for spells and COL I'm betting.

Oh, also need to remember that lore bonus from imbeds is 1/2 as compared to casting the spell yourself. I cant remember if that applies to scrolls - I used to know but have forgotten it seems. :(

[serra7965]

Arcane symbols help with disarming scarabs and glyph traps. Because it is much cheaper than learning a spell this is the way I went for not only disarming scarabs so far with a *scritch scritch* message everytime, it allows me to invest in scrolls that have disarm enhancement and lockpicking enhancement (they are not very hard to find) and other great spells that help when hunting that are self cast only or when I can't find someone to cast needed spells that aren't self cast. Sure you need 2 ranks to equal one *phantom* rank of the real spell, two ranks are still much much cheaper than spell research. IMO

[Celephais]

I think when refering to the spell research they intended to get 403/404 for picking/disarming, not 408 for scarabs (although some rogues like to get 407 for fused... this was prior to wedging though).

[serra7965]

Learning arcane symbols itself allows you to better disarm scarabs and glyphs, no spell casting needed.

[Celephais]

I misread what you meant by "the spell" as in the one phatom rank crap, I thought you were saying some spell was used for disarming scarabs, I'm aware you don't need a spell for scarabs, but 408 was the only one I could think of that would apply. (basically I read your post with the middle part removed).

I don't think anyone would argue that getting spell ranks for a rogue is useful because it extends duration on self cast spells...

[serra7965]

My last line meant that you need 2 ranks in arcane symbols to give you the *phantom* rank of the real spell. Of course I would not get the bonus given for knowing more spells in the same circle so I would always get the base time for the spell I cast. My husband has a wizard and cleric so I am rarely in need of spells that aren't self cast. I simply use my scroll reading ability for scrolls for disarm/picking enhance and unlock and then for self-cast spells that I happen to find that are useful to me on a particular hunt. I am singled in arcane symbols having 30 ranks. Perhaps as I have more trains under my belt (so to speak) I will use some TP's on spell research, for now I am happy with using a scroll. Just my path I chose and wanted to share with original poster...

Casting picking/disarm enhancement from a scroll gets a 10%-50% decrease depending on your ability. I was just trying to give an alternative to spending so many TPs on spell research when one *should* already be training in arcane symbols if they want to be a pure picker, and therefore can use their knowledge of scroll reading to self cast spells. IMO

[serra7965]

Just wanted to add, it is one of my hunting/picking rogues (level 29 has 2 x only in picking/disarm) that has 30 ranks in arcane symbols. Seems my triple X locksmith (level 29) only has 20 right now because I needed the points to at least let her hunt decent.