The rogue is the quintessential dungeon delver, trap disarmer, con artist, deceiver and all round trouble maker. I love rogues. When you get lucky you get to deal a whole lot of damage, and when you got time to role play you have a thousand choices on your personality – the scoundrel, the charmer, the backstabber and slit throat… good, evil or somewhere in between…
I also like magic and psionics, although very seldom to I ever play a fully fledged magician or psion. But I have been thinking for the last two hours of an Arcane Rogue – no not a rogue that dabbles in magic. Rather a mage who specialises in thievery.
Also, this is not an Eclipse build but rather just an idea or more to the point, a collection of spells from the SRD alone that are really relevant to thievery.
Level 0
Mage Hand – well duh. move things at a distant
Detect Magic – really good if you looking for the money loot.
Detect Poison – if you paranoid – can also detect poison traps EFG
Dancing Lights – more condensed than the Light spell meaning you can control where it goes and hold the orb in your hand like a torch. Of course you can cast light on a coin or stone as well.
Ghost Sound – only use here is to distract guards or other people.
Open/Close – only useful on things that are not locked. Your DM might say a latched window is effectively locked. But if you can see the latch, then Mage Hand should work.
Level 1
Change Self or Disguise Self – very good to run down an alley after been spotted and presto you are someone else.
Charm Person – Charm your way passed the guards
Sleep – if they low level goons or if the occupants are awake
Hold Portal – good to lock someone in a room.
Mount – yes it is a good idea. To make haste with your escape and also as a ebast of burden
Unseen Servant – if you can see into a room you can use it to open windows, doors etc
Detect Secret Doors – enough said
Floating Disk – to haul the loot
Silent Image – distraction
Ventriloquism – distraction
Expeditious Retreat – make haste your escape
Feather Fall – jump off a building
Jump – jump across buildings
Level 2
Knock – self explanatory
Obscure Object – useful if its a unique item
Fog Cloud – distraction
Detect Thoughts – discover what the guards are thinking
Locate Object – you can locate general items like jewellery, gems and how about Locate Object- mechanical traps?
Darkness – distraction
Shatter – on windows. But noise might be a problem
Invisibility – the Ultimate in stealth
Minor Image – better than Silent Image
Misdirection – in case you are spotted
Alter Self – a better disguise
Dark Vision – very useful for those who don’t have it
Levitate – get to the upper levels
Rope Trick – Hide away
Spider Climb – self explanatory
Level 3
Dispel Magic – get rid of nasty magic traps
Nondetection – hide yourself or the object you stole from scrying
Arcane Sight – better than detect magic
Deep Slumber- better than sleep
Suggestion – get guards to leave post
Major Image – distraction
Fly- escape
Shrink Item – make the item small… very small
Level 4 (last level I promise)
Dimension Door – get in and out without touching the door
Detect Scrying – for the paranoid ones
Charm Monster – more powerful than charm person
Geas, lesser – more powerful than suggestion
Illusory Wall – wall, floor, ceiling looks real – very tricky one.
Invis Greater – just means you can fight if you need to
Polymorph – escape spell
Stone Shape – escape spell
You don’t even need all these, as a 5th level Wizard you are pretty well set to be a thief. Skill wise you should get diplomacy and gather info so you can find a buyer for your hard earned loot. Even a sorcerer can pull this off – been very specialised. Bards have access top a lot of the above as well, and a wide skill list. With enough thought and preparation your Wizard in the party that doesn’t have a rogue can acquire these spells.
I will do a psionic comparison some time but most of these spells are available as psionic powers anyway.
Hope you like… cheers for now 🙂