Skills
All rogues need to pick up Combat Training as soon as they can. Combat Training opens up the higher tier weapon talents, which you can't live without.
Spend your first skill point here to vault up to at least Improved Combat Training. You need to reach Expert Combat Training by level 6 and Expert Combat Training by level 9 if you want to focus on combat talents.
Poison-Making can help improve your damage totals, so it's probably the second best rogue skill.
Buy beyond the first rank to access stronger poisons and different special effects. You could also go the Trap-Making route and branch out a little more into AoE damage.
If you want more options during dialogue, especially to sway people's opinions or avoid certain fights, invest in Coercion.
It's an incredibly useful skill in dialogue; it gives you story options that you won't get otherwise. Cunning opens up the Coercion skills, which fits in with many rogue talents.
Don't forget about Stealing. It focuses on a high cunning score, something rogues should have. Use the Stealing skill to grab gear not normally dropped by foes.
Rogue Skill Recommendations
Assuming you spend at least 10 skill points by career's end, here's a good spread to consider. Note that many other combinations could work better for you, so experiment!
- Combat Training +4
- Poison-Making +4
- Coercion +1
- Stealing +1
If you aren't directly playing your rogue companions and want one of them to run around independently, invest in Combat Tactics for extra tactics slots.
The more tactic slots you open, the more you can shape how your companion behaves in battle. Inevitably, even if you plan on controlling your rogue during fights, there will be moments when you don't program your rogue's every move (or something more important is going on) and tactics come into play.
One or two points should be good, or max it out if you want the character to go on autopilot.
Talents
Rogues have many areas to spend their points, but not enough points to develop them all (never mind the specializations). So what do you choose?
Rogue-specific active and passive talents? Lockpicking and disarming traps? Stealth? The Dual Weapon talent school? The Archer talent school? A specialization or two?
If you decide to let your focus slide on the weapon talent chains, you can still use dual weapons and bows, but you won't be nearly as efficient at it. You will be a master at stealth, lockpicking and disarming traps, and your other rogue-specific talents.
In addition, you can spend fewer of your skill points on Combat Training and more on Poison-Making, Herbalism, Survival, Coercion, and Stealing. If you choose to focus on one of the weapon talent chains, some of your rogue-specific talents will suffer.
So what kind of rogue do you want to be? Does passing up locked treasure and rooms drive you nuts? Do you love being able to stealth through places and situations?
Would you prefer to have a deadly combat rogue? Whatever you choose, make sure it complements the rest of your party. For example, a rogue who is adept in lockpicking, stealth, and rogue-specific talents should be paired with a solid melee rogue or warrior (someone who can take the threat and deal the damage).
It also wouldn't hurt to have a good ranged attacker in this party too. You won't be the best one-on-one melee opponent, but you'll be able to:
- Drop your threat
- Evade many incoming attacks
- Stun opponents
- Move deftly in combat
- Gain bonuses to critical chance on all attacks
- Backstab stunned and paralyzed foes
- Deliver penalties to your foes' armor, movement speed, and defense
It's not the most sportsmanlike character, but you'll have a solid advantage in many situations. In addition to your below-the-belt style of dealing with things, you can steal, sneak, and pick your way into many interesting places and treasure chests.
All rogues should familiarize themselves with the cooldown component of each talent. The worst situation is to have plenty of stamina and no available talents to use. Branch out into different chains to avoid the cooldown problem.
Your talents drain stamina from your pool. Watch how much stamina you're using in a fight and act accordingly.
If you run short without a mage's Restoration spell to replenish you, it could cost your party a victory. Gauge what you have to do to help the team.
There's little sense running off a series of moves that drains three quarters of your stamina on the first opponent when there are three more to go.
Save your stamina. You never know when the next fight will start, or how long the current fight will go if you have unexpected ambushers, and you'll be grateful you didn't waste stamina.