Fun Stuff: Essentials Thief Build

11Nov/100

Fun Stuff: Essentials Thief Build

Meet Mad Jack, the Brigand. A conversation I had with Tim regarding the Thief inspired me to create this bizarre build; a tough-as-nails melee Thief.

While the Thief can use their Dexterity to make melee basic attacks due to their Weapon Finess feature, they don’t have to use Dexterity, but could use regular old Strength instead. With the exception of the bow, all of the Thief weapons are one-handed, and the class has no restrictions on what armor they wear to use their powers.

Which brings us to Jack.

Mad Jack, Human Rogue (Thief) 1

Str 20 (18+2)
Con 14
Dex 10
Int 8
Wis 10
Cha 11

Jack’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, which probably explains his bizarre lifestyle. As a Human, he gets two Feats, and we’ll use them both to pick up better armor; Chainmail and Light Shields. For weapons, he’ll use a trusty Short Sword.

For Tricks, I’m looking at the Thug’s Trick and Tumbling Trick:

Thug’s Trick At-Will + Martial – Move Action Personal
Effect: You can shift 1 square. Until the end of your next turn, enemies you flank provoke opportunity attacks from you if they shift.

Tumbling Trick At-Will + Martial – Move Action Personal
Effect: You shift up to 3 squares. The next time you hit an enemy with a melee basic attack this turn, you also deal damage equal to your Strength modifier to a different enemy which must be adjacent to you.

Jack doesn’t get any ways to get Combat Advantage other than good old-fashioned flanking, but teamed up with a Knight, he presents some nasty additional threat; if the enemy tries to shift, he gets hit by two Opportunity Attacks (and Jack’s is quite nasty). If he attacks Jack, he’s at -2 and will take a hit from the Knight.

And Tumbling Trick gives Jack a nice Cleave-style effect, great for fights with Minions.

So at level 1, Jack’s attack and defenses look like this:

AC: 17
Fort: 16
Ref: 14
Will: 11

Short Sword: +8 to hit, 1d6+7 damage (with +2 to hit and +2d6 damage when flanking).

Initially, Jack doesn’t seem much better off than any other Thief, and in truth, he’s not. His AC is the same as a 20 Dex Thief in leather, and he basically trades Reflex for Fortitude. However, as he levels up, you can continue to put points solely in Strength and Constitution. At level 2, you can grab Heavy Shields, at level 4, Scale Armor, and he can wear Plate by level 6. At this point, he has the following stats:

AC: 23
Fort: 19
Ref: 18
Will: 14

Short Sword: +12 to hit, 1d6+7 damage (with +2 to hit and +2d6 damage when flanking).

Note this doesn’t even include magical enhancement bonuses!

Now, I’m not saying Mad Jack is optimal in any sense of the word. A standard Dexterity-based Rogue could grab Hide Armor and Light Shields at level 1, giving them the following:

AC: 19
Fort: 12
Ref: 19
Will: 11

And they’d still be doing the same damage with their basic melee attack (although they probably won’t be using Tumbling Trick). But at level 6, they still won’t be able to have Heavy Shields, and their defenses would look like this:

AC: 22
Fort: 16
Ref: 22
Will: 14

Still comparable, and by level 8, when they can grab a Heavy Shield, they’d have a better AC than Jack does in plate. So no, far from optimal, since Jack spent two extra Feats on his AC that the Rogue didn’t have to. But that’s not really the point. The point is, Jack isn’t really any worse off; he has a little extra toughness, and can toss out more splash damage to adjacent enemies.

The real lesson to learn from this is that you don’t need Dexterity at all to be a decent Thief, which means that races like Dwarves or Dragonborn, who get bonuses to Strength but not Dexterity, can still make for good Rogues! Granted, without the bonus Feat, they’ll be a bit farther behind the curve on AC for a bit, but they bring other things to the table, such as increased Constitution for the Dwarf (and that minor action Second Wind!)..or the ability to inflict elemental damage on your foes with Dragonbreath!