Old Player, New Character

[POWPOW]

Hi People,

I used to play about 15 years ago and I'm now starting a new rogue and have some questions about stats and training. First off here are my planned starting stats:

Human Rogue
STR - 70
CON - 70
DEX - 70
AGL - 88
DIS - 73
AUR - 82
LOG - 73
INT - 59
WIS - 55
INF - 20

My training plans are as followed:
Armor Use ----------- 0.5x
Edged Weapons ------ 2x
Two Weapon Combat - 2x
Combat Maneuvers -- 1.5x
Ambush --------------- 2x
Physical Fitness ------- 1.5x
Dodging ---------------- 2x
Climbing --------------- 0.25x
Swimming ------------- 0.25x
Disarm Traps ---------- 2x
Picking Locks ---------- 2x
Stalking & Hiding ------ 2x
Perception -------------- 2x
Pickpocketing ---------- 2x

There's some points left over.

Would it be better to drop Physical Fitness to 1x and increase Armor to 1x from 0.5x? or maybe increase dodge to 2.5x from 2x? What's best for overall survivability?
Is there a certain amount of Survival or First Aid ranks I should get to? Is it ok to ignore them completely?
I've read that Arcane Symbols ranks are needed for disarming scarabs and other traps. Any rule for how many ranks of that I should target?
Multi-Opponent Combat, worth it to get to 5 ranks? 10 ranks?
Will 403 and 404 eventually become required to pick most of my own locks?

Any advice and feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Tgo01]

Depending on where you plan on hunting you can get by with 0 ranks of swimming until you're level 80ish.

I recommend 1xing in either survival or first aid, it really helps with gathering silvers. Survival is nice if you have to worry about the icy terrains around Icemule but First Aid is cheaper for rogues if you're short on training points.

Arcane Symbols helps with disarming scarabs but from what I recall this is mostly just needed when you don't have many disarm traps ranks, eventually the disarm traps ranks themselves will be enough. I think 10 or 15 ranks of Arcane Symbols is recommended at lower levels for scarabs.

You'll probably be okay with picking your own boxes for a while but you should get 403 and 404 eventually.

You can also get by with just 1x perception if you need to free up some training points, that and 2xing disarming traps should be enough to see traps on your own boxes. More perception helps with CM defense but that's pretty expensive training points wise for now.

[cwolff]

You'll want about 15 ranks AS. I think I worked my up to 20 initially just to be sure I didn't screw up any bugs.

Definitely get to at least 5 ranks MOC as soon as you can. It's fun and at least one unfocused mstrike is good to have access too. After that get it as you can. MOC is nice in that you get incremental benefits with each rank.

Push for Brig even if you 2x or 1.5x to get there. Once into brig some rogues stop armor all together. I like to have it by lvl 20.

1x PF is just fine for now. Feel free to max HP's then slow down to get back to 1x. If you go GoS more PF is always good.

Never had extra points for survival and FA at lower levels. If you do have extra points get the spells. I bet you can get one spell every 4 or 5 levels. That way you have access to lockpick (403) and disarm enhancement (404). You can stop spells there or keep going as you wish, but I definitely encourage you to get to 404 at least. These spells will be the difference in picking some of your own boxes or not.

Here's the thing with stats. You can change them 5 times before level 20. It's not a 30 day thing anymore. Play with them for now and use them to your best adantage.

[Tenser]

You can change your stats right before you turn 20, so definitely get that strength and logic boosted for the 1 to 19 levels

[POWPOW]

Thanks all for the advice. And yeah, those stats I listed are for when I'm about to turn 20. Right now my stats are way different.

[POWPOW]

I thought I would give an update incase someone stumbles upon this while creating their own character. I ended up making some changes after spending some time leveling and making it to 20. It's my opinion now that doing only 2x dodge for a build that doesn't use a shield is not going to be fun if you're primarily relying on hunting for exp. I found myself getting killed while in defensive stance by creatures around my level, especially if a couple more happen to wonder in, or you're running through a room and one attacks. This is also a major problem if you're hunting grounds also spawns creatures a bit higher level then the primary creatures in that area. This seems to be way more common than it was when I had originally played and the level cap wasn't squished to 100.

I ended up dropping lock picking and disarm to go 2.5x dodge and switched to THW and am using a katana. Every limb attack ends up leaving a stump now. I found while I was TWC I had a main gauche for the added DS, but it was so soft it didn't really feel worth it. It also seemed to miss a decent amount.

I don't really miss not being able to lock pick. The little added experience is nice and I did make a more money not paying for a locksmith, but it really wasn't that fun. Also, dropping picking means I don't need spells (403, 404), so this will free up a lot of points later on.