A Guide to Rogue Enhancements

By Nuitaran

Rogue Enhancements can be tricky. It's hard to know when you have just enough of a Skill, or too much. For most occasions, even the highest-level quests on the hardest difficulty, you will find and Disable Traps without critical failures nearly 100% of the time if your skills are in the mid-40s to low-50s.

If your Rogue is well stocked with Skill-boosting equipment, +5 Thieves Tools, and Max Ranks in his skills, then you may be able to ignore Skill Enhancements or even Rogue's Action Boost in favor of things that increase your combat ability.

Remember that your role in the party is important. Your companions depend on you to guide them through traps, secret doors and locks with the most accuracy you can have. Your first responsibility with your Enhancements should be in making sure your Skills are high enough to fill that role. Second should be making sure that you help prevent the stereotypes that rogues are no good for combat. Take some stealth and Sneak Attack Enhancements when you can afford them and clean up with your DPS (Damage Per Second).

Your character will gain Enhancements as he increases in ranks; however, he can only have a maximum of 4 active Enhancements at any point. The choices for the 4 Enhancements slots are drawn from a list of both class and racial Enhancements that increase as the character increases in ranks. This guide will focus purely on the Enhancements available to the rogue class.

For this guide, I will focus on the highest-level Enhancement from each line, whether it comes in the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, or 12th level versions of the Enhancements. Each Enhancement is given a usefulness rating of 1-5 (with 5 being the most useful). The notes will state why this rating is given as such.

Rogue's Dexterity Official Text: Grants a +3 increase to Dexterity score. Comments: There's never anything wrong with upping stats. Rating: 5

[Sonic, Fire, Electricity, Cold or Acid] Trap Lore Official Text: You gain energy resistance of 10 versus [sonic, fire, electricity, cold, or acid] or improve your existing resistance by 10. Comments: This is easy enough to make up for with potions, gear, or a companion spell caster. Unless you have a free spot, and are headed someplace like Taming the Flames, skip this one. Rating: 2

Improved Trap Sense Official Text: Mobility Grants an extra +4 bonus on saving throws against traps. Comments: Unless you have a low Reflex Save, this won't help you much. Rating: 2

Price Warfare Official Text: You help the targeted ally negotiate with merchants, giving that ally a short-term boost to his Haggle skill. Comments: I don't see anyone using this. It's not that great. Rating: 2

Sneak Attack Accuracy Official Text: You gain +3 to hit with your sneak attacks. Comments: If you have all your Skills nice and high, and you have room for some combat boosts, this is a great way to get your Attack Bonus closer to the Melee classes. Rating: 4

Skill Ingenuity Official Text: Grants a +8 bonus to Open Lock and Disable Device skills. Comments: Until you get yourself some items that add +10 to these skills, keep this one loaded. The nice thing about Items for Disabling and Unlocking them is you can just pop them on and off when you need them. Early on you will find this Enhancement is a must. Rating: 5

Skill Perception Official Text: Grants a +8 bonus to Search and Spot skills. Comments: Same as Ingenuity, until you find items that can get you into the Forties on these skills, keep this one around. Rating: 5

Skill Stealth Official Text: When Grants a +8 bonus to Hide and Move Silently skills. Comments: This isn't as important as Searching, Spotting and Disabling but in some quests it will help quite a bit. This is a good one to swap for in a few situational quests. Rating: 3

Faster Sneaking Official Text: Grants a 54% increase in movement rate while sneaking. Comments: In most instances this isn't entirely useful. Rating: 3

Rogue Action Boost Official Text: This Enhancement grants the ability to receive short-term boosts to skills, weapon damage, or attack speed. Comments: This is a must for a while. Eventually your skills may be so high you won't need it; until then, keep this one loaded and use it on every trap. Rating: 5

Sneak Attack Training Official Text: You gain +12 to your sneak attack damage. Comments: If all your skills are up to par and you have space for some combat boosts, this one is incredible for DPS. Watch your aggro, however. Land a Sneak Attack or two with this Enhancement on and the monsters will be after you in no time. Rating: 4

Read more of our DDO Rogue Guides:

• Creation Guide
• Rogue's Guide to Sneak
  
• DDO Rogue Builds