Beginner's guide to playing a rogue

Rogues are one of the most versatile professions in Gemstone IV. The hallmark of the rogue is speed and precision, dealing physical damage while staying securely hidden in the shadows. Rogues are the main locksmiths in Elanthia and have access to the rogue guild.

Character Creation

Race

The races that work best with the rogue profession, in order, will be Elf, Halfling, Forest and Burghal Gnomes, Half-elf, Human, and Aelotoi. These races have bonuses in Dexterity, Agility, and Strength, key rogue statistics.

It may still be difficult to choose a race, and you may find yourself asking, "OK, but which one is best for me?" Try to imagine what you want your rogue to be able to do. If you want to focus more on:

Melee, choose one of the taller classes such as Human or Half-elf. Equal dexterity with strength
Ranged, choose one of the fastest classes such as Elf or Halfling. Higher dexterity than strength.
Combat Maneuver, choose one that has more strength such as Human for Melee or Elf for Ranged.
Trading, choose one that has more dexterity such as Half-elf for Melee or Halfling for Ranged.

Statistics

For beginning players, the following starting stats are suggested:

Strength:100, Constitution:60, Dexterity:100, Agility:100
Discipline:90, Aura:70
Logic:50, Intuition:50, Wisdom:20, Influence:20

The first four stats focus on physical training points, the last four stats focus on mental training points, and the middle two stats contribute to both types. This setup will give you the highest amount of training points for your skills and give you the most power (AS and DS) to start your adventure strong.

As discussed in the New Players' Guide, your stats are fundamental to the game's mechanics and will grow with you throughout your career. Stats are capped at 100 so players must balance early power with potential power. In your first thirty days you have five free opportunities to change your stats, so experiment with relative strengths. If you do not know what to adjust, then remove 10 points from Strength, Agility, and Dexterity, and put them in one of the following stat sets:

Wisdom +30 for those who want add a little magic.
Influence +20 and Constitution +10 for those focusing on combat maneuvers or melee.
Constitution +10, Logic +10, Intuition +10 for those focusing on trading or ranged.

Skills

Different skills have different training priorities. Core skills should be trained in every level, either once (1x) or twice (2x). Threshold skills are those which provide bonuses at specific thresholds and can be strategically trained in. Secondary skills provide useful abilities that each player can prioritize as they see fit. As physical fighters rogues will also rely on combat maneuvers. The following training plan is the most vanilla version, as rogues are very versatile fighters with a wide range of weapons and tactics available to them.

Core

One Defensive Skill (2x):

Dodging - Able to dodge physical or bolt damage completely, particularly by the quickest of races. Able to provide defense strength while freeing both hands for Two-Handed Weapons, Two Weapon Combat, or Ranged Weapons.
Shield Use - Can completely block physical damage and later bolt damage. Great for the less agile of races. Can be used with One Handed Weapons. Shields can also be used offensively via a combat maneuver called Shield Bash.

One Offense Skill (2x):

Blunt Weapons - Good against slow and/or Undead creatures, usable with Two Weapon Combat or Shield Use.
Edged Weapons - Good against fast and/or living Creatures, usable with Two Weapon Combat or Shield Use.
Ranged Weapons - Lower Raw damage. Fast attacks. Higher chance for Critical weighting hits.
Two-Handed Weapons - Higher Raw damage. Slow attacks. Higher chance for Damage weighting hits.

General Skills:

Ambush and Stalking and Hiding (2x) - launch surprise attacks from hiding
Combat Maneuvers (1x) - provides access to additional combat abilities that cost stamina
Physical Fitness (1x) - for more health and to help keep damage at a minimum.
Perception (2x) - Helps with defense and with attacking from a hidden location.
Picking Locks and Disarming Traps (2x) - open treasure chests that you and other adventurers find

Threshold

Armor Use - To wear heavier armor and help keep damage to a minimum. Eight and 30 ranks are key early thresholds for heavier armor, while 20 ranks provide access to Armor Specializations.
Climbing and Swimming - to navigate Elanthia. Some hunting grounds cannot be accessed without these skills, but these areas are generally not for the beginning adventurer.

Secondary

Arcane Symbols and Magic Item Use - access spells via scrolls or items.
First Aid - tend wounds and skin creatures.
Harness Power - provides mana (particularly useful for some society abilities).
Pickpocketing - steal from your fellow adventurers. Not recommended for the beginning player since they will not have enough skill to be successful against established adventurers.
Spell Research - although costly and thus unattainable early in your career, rogues do have access to two spell circles.
Survival - better fight nature's obstacles
Trading - earn more money selling your loot

Combat Maneuvers

As squares rogues have easy access to a variety of combat maneuvers (accessed via CMAN), which provide a variety of combat benefits that cost stamina. Combat maneuvers are a great way to customize your training to suit your character. For example, stealth-oriented rogues would train in skills like Dust Shroud, Shadow Mastery, Silent Strike, and Vanish. Each rank in the combat maneuvers skill provides one CMAN point, and each maneuver costs a certain amount of points per rank in the maneuver. The Dust Shroud maneuver, as an example, has five ranks with the first rank costing two CMAN points and the last rank costing six. Additional ranks improve proficiency in the maneuver and may unlock new benefits. Some maneuvers have prerequisites (e.g., Vanish requires four ranks in Shadow Mastery) and not all maneuvers are available to all professions. Rogues are one of two professions (the other being warriors) that have access to some maneuvers via the rogue guild, which rogues can join at level 15. Sweep for example is trainable in the guild, meaning rogues do not have to spend CMAN points to use this maneuver (but must spend time training in the guild instead).