Icewind Dale EE: Rogue

In Icewind Dale Rogues are usually very useful characters, they usually give the team advantages by using their skills rather than their strength. They are great on teams but they may be difficult to solo with unless you multi class or dual class because they are neither offensive enough or defensive enough to survive early on.

I will include Monk class in the Rogue section because they get to hide in shadows.
This compilation includes: Thief, Bard and Monk


Thieves are useful characters to have in any d&d based game, this is because of the skills they are able to use give them advantage in battle and outside of battle.

The thief skills are:

• Pick Pockets
• Open Locks
• Find Traps
• Move Silently
• Hide in Shadows
• Detect Illusion
• Set Traps

In battle the most important skills are Hide in Shadows and Move Silently because they allow you to sneak up on enemies and back stab them for extra damage.

Outside of battle Open Locks and Find Traps are the most useful because there is a lot of doors and chests that have good items inside but are locked and Find Traps is useful because there are many traps in the game that will deal a lot of damage if you set them off.

Setting traps can be effective but you can't be in the enemy line of sight to set them.

Detect Illusion can also be useful but isn't all that important.

Here is the information about the thief classes

• Thief

May not wear armour greater than studded leather
May not use shields larger than buckler
May use blades except two handed sword, club, quarter staff, shortbow, sling, dart and crossbow
May not exceed 1 point in a weapon skill or fighting style skill
May distribute 25 thief skills per level, 40 at level 1
7th level gains evasion to avoid certain effects
Backstab damage maximum of x5 damage
May not be lawful good
Hit Die: D6
Needs at least 15 Dexterity to dual class

• Assassin

+1 to damage and attack rolls
Can reach x7 backstab damage
May poison their weapons once per day + 1 more every 4 levels (for 5 rounds may poison a foe)
May only distribute 15 skill points per level instead of 25

Assassins are very powerful at backstabbing, this makes them optimum for dual classing as a mage so they can use the combo of hiding in shadows/going invisible and using the spell Mislead to keep back stabbing the enemy for lots of damage.

• Bounty Hunter

15% bonus to set traps
May set special snare once per day +1 more every 5 levels ( deals huge amounts of damage and gains additional effects every few levels e.g level 21 maze trap)
May only distribute 20 skill points per level instead of 25

Bounty Hunters make full use of the thief skill set traps, their traps are good to use but this means you have to get very high level (21) to make full use of them, this makes dual classing quite hard, if you were to dual class go for either fighter or mage.

• Swashbuckler

+1 bonus to AC, +1 more every 5 levels
+1 bonus to hit and damage rolls every 5 levels
May get 2 points in melee weapons and 3 in 2 weapon fighting style
May not backstab

Swashbuckler is one of my favourite classes, it is almost like a fighter but has thief skills aswell. If dual classing go to mage, dual class at level 10, this way you can reach 30 mage and you play almost like a fighter/thief/mage but it is easy to level up.

• Shadow Dancer

+10% to Hide in Shadows and Move Silently
Hide in plain sight
May use Shadowstep once per day after level 5 the +1 more every 5 levels ( stop time for 7 seconds but you can't attack)
+1 saving throws
May not be lawful
May not set snare
May not exceed x4 backstab and gains at a slower rate
needs Strength, Charisma and Dexterity to be at least 15 to dual class.

Shadow Dancer are great if you like to constantly use the backstab ability, apart from that the aren't very strong. They do however make a good dual class combo with fighter and mage, dual class at level 13 for optimum backstab.

Overall thieves are great characters to play as except early on when soloing, they are best used when dual classing or multi classing to make up for the defence and offence they lack.

Bards are very interesting characters to play as, they get a little bit of almost everything including Mage spells, Pick Pockets and they can play musical instruments. 

  

• Bard

May not wear armour greater than chain mail

May not wear greater shields than bucklers

May not exceed 1 point in weapons and fighting styles

May Pick Pockets

Increased Lore

May cast Arcane spells starting from 2nd level

May use bard song that powers up allies and improves every few levels by gaining extra effects

Alignment must be neutral

Hit Die; D6

May not dual class or multi class

• Blade

May place 3 points in 2 weapon fighting style

May use the abilities offensive spin and defensive spin once per day +1 more every 4 levels

Defensive spin makes the user gain +1 AC per level of user (Maximum 10 AC)

Offensive spin makes user gain +2 to attack, deals maximum damage, gains an extra attack per round and may not be used alongside haste/improved haste.

Cannot play many bard songs (doesn't get powerful ones)

Half Pick Pockets value

Half Lore value

The blade takes a different approach to the bard, it is a lot more offensive than a regular bard and doesn't focus on supporting the team with bard songs. Out of all the bard classes this one is probably the best for soloing and it is very fun to play.

• Jester

Bard songs have changed so instead of supporting allies they instead decrease the power of enemies.

The jester is a very simple class that just changes what the bard songs do, it is fun to play but it is probably outclassed by the other bard classes.

• Skald

+1 to attack and damage rolls

Has bard songs that greatly improves allies ability to fight and later on gives immunities

May not play many of the bard songs normally available

Has 1/4 Pick Pockets value

The Skald is a very good class for a team, it has great bard songs that give great bonuses later on meaning it doesn't need the other bard songs. The +1 attack bonus is also quite useful even though it may not seem like much. Good class and I recommend it for a team.

Overall bards are decent but not overwhelming, I like how quickly they level up and if I were to recommend any of them I would say Blade is the best due to how powerful those spin abilities are. If only bards could dual class because a fighter with offensive spin would be pretty amazing but unfortunately it's not possible.

Monks are very interesting characters, they use no armour and nor weapons but later on they can be very powerful. Early on it is another story, they are almost useless and have to hit and run using darts as there only weapons because they are not powerful enough, they are quick at levelling up which makes it slightly easier but they are still a pain to play as early on.

• Monk

May not wear armour

May not exceed 1 point in weapons, may only use single weapon style and may only use non two handed weapons available to thief class

May move 2 points faster than other characters, this is increased every 5 levels

May make an extra 1/2 unarmed attack every 3 levels

The dice used for fist increases every few levels to a maximum of d12

In later weapons the fist is treated as a magical weapon and improves in power every few levels after to a maximum of +4

+2 saving throws against spells

+1 AC vs missiles every 3 levels

+1 AC, +1 more every 2 levels

May use stunning blow once per day +1 more every 4 levels (may stun foe)

5th level, immune to haste, slow and disease

7th level, may use lay on hands to heal 2 hp per level

8th level, -1 to speed factor

9th level +1 to saving throws and immune to charm

11th level, Immune to poison

12th level -1 to speed factor

13th level may use quivering palm once per day (may instantly kill opponent)

14th level gains 42% magic resistance, gains 3% more every 3 levels

20th level, immune to non magical weapons

Must be lawful

Hit Die; D8

May not dual class or multi class

The monk is probably unmatched later on but as I've already said they are incredibly weak early on and you will probably have to load your game a lot of times if soloing until they are high level.

• Dark Moon Monk

May use detect illusion starting at 10%

May use frozen fist once per day +1 more every 4 levels (each hit deals +2 cold damage)

May cast blindness once per day

3rd level, may cast blur once per day

7th level, may cast vampiric touch once per day

11th level may cast mirror image once per day

Must be lawful evil

May not use lay on hands

May not use stunning blow

Overall this is my favourite monk kit because it can use several spells including blur and mirror image. The loss of lay on hands isn't that big a deal and the loss of stunning blow is mitigated by the spells this kit gets. Unfortunately this class is still weak to begin with but if you manage to make it through the weak stage it will be worth it.

Sun Soul Monk

2nd level, may cast Sun soulray once per day (deals 1d8 damage +1d8 more every to levels, maximum 5d8 and also does +6 against undead)

5th level, may use Flaming fists once per day (adds 2d6 fire damage to each hit for one round, the number of rounds increase later on)

6th level, may cast one more Sun soulray per day

8th level may cast greater sun once per day (acts as fire shield red)

10th level. may cast one more Sun soulray per day

13th level, may cast Sun soulbeam once per day (deals 9d6 damage, all creatures except the user may be blinded for 2 hours and +3 vs undead)

15th level, may cast one more Sun soulray per day

Must be lawful good

May not use stunning blow

May not use quivering palm

This class is actually quite good, it is equally as powerful as the dark moon one but instead of using defensive spells it uses offensive flame abilities. The loss of quivering palm is a bit annoying but later on you will be so powerful you won't really need it.

Overall monks are a good class to play as despite being weak early on because once you're past the weak stage you will be so powerful nothing will stand in your way.

Rogues are a good style of class to play as and if you choose to play as one choose which one you play as wisely because they can either be completely overpowered or completely useless depending on the class and build you choose.

Hope you found this useful, please comment