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Most skills have some custom text output when rolling a skill check for chat, such as Spellcraft being described as "knowledge of the Arcane." Not all skills do. These skills appear like: "Character's Astronomy Check Skills are Good."

I'm sure someone creative can fill out the strings for everything that doesn't have something custom yet.

This is ultimately OOC and incredibly needless, but it feels nice and is low-effort to update.

Dearest, most apt, capable, bureaucraftical, and remarkable Chief Scribe Frederica Ashbury,

I, Junior Scribe Toppoboppo Hoppoloppo, have been commissioned by the most POTENT, HANDSOME, and GENEROUS Former Legate and Ambassador of Kha'esh Argent Argyris, by way of a TREMENDOUS two-thousand dinar Bribe, half of which now lies within our esteemed Coffers as is custom (Praise the Sultan), has made a request of our attendance to his MOST ESTEEMED FACILITIES, that being our Palace's Embassy of Kha'esh.

He has, of course, proffered funding for a renovation of its interior to properly respect his home's MOST ESTEEMED SPLENDOR. He bears, through me, Junior Scribe Toppoboppo Hoppoloppo the Chaotician, most loyal and faithful servant of the Sultan, proud civil servant, and respectable member of the Office of Complaints, a request for these facilities.

He was once, as is writ, known as the Dragon of Ephia's Well, and it seems he lives up to this moniker, for he has fear that his great power over Flame may be the bane of our Palace should proper ACCOMODATION not be made for him. Thus, he, in his great wisdom and most excellent and profound generosity, has requested that we see to coating the walls of the Embassy of Kha'esh, during its reconstruction and renovation, with fire-proof materials, to ensure that any FLARES of his ARCANE MASTERY do not cause undue damage to the rest of our most PRESTIGIOUS, BELOVED, and PATRIOTIC Pyramid, wherein other Embassies, the Legates, and our most ESTEEMED Scribes of the Sublime Garden do reside and do work.

It is my hope in light of this MOST GENEROUS BRIBE that we might find a suitable material by which to fire-ward the walls of this space, of greater SPLENDOR and PRESTIGE than mere stone.

Praise the Sultan Osman VI, Long May He Reign,
Junior Scribe Toppoboppo Hoppoloppo, Chaotician and Complaint Gnome

Adar 15th.

Today, I celebrate three months of freedom. I wonder if I should have a 'freedom day' when I hit one year? I don't even know the date I was born, so that's the closest I'll get, I suppose.

How much can change in that time. When I arrived in the Well, I was drunk on possibility. A spite boiled within me, a spite for the world and an intoxicating sense of the inevitability of my rise to comfort and power.

Witnessing the forces at play that I now contend with has sobered those thoughts. A government built on deciding who gets to be one of the two unilateral despots, that sets them against each other. A legal system more often built on favors and popularity than actual legal facts. Bellicose foes on the field who have time and again brought me great injury. And it turns out the world itself is dying? They don't talk about things like that in the back-waters. I guess if local resources seem sufficient there's not much stock put in it. But the Sea of Pearls, which now feeds me, cannot live more than a decade before it becomes unnavigable.

So, here I am. Seeking power and strength and knowledge. To be promoted to Balestriere and know greater safety in that, and have more influence to move things about. To train unto death and become a fighter who won't get mugged in the fucking sewers. To understand the ancient things at play in the Ash Waste; Assuru, the Machine, the turning of ages. To find the Cup, that I might have the time to acquire that comfort.

I've found, in my experiences, that I seem to be a better person than I expected. I find it comforting to guard the refugees of the Drifter's Stockade. The cruel punishments dished out by power-mad Legates fill me with rage and despair; probably because they remind me of the lash I faced myself. Noble causes have started to call to me.

I suppose it's lucky that I heard tell of la Banda Rossa before the Balladeers got to me. Gods know when I take to the Mizzar pipe I get carried away; the hallucinogenic prophecy-drink would probably have stripped away everything that was Me for how much I'd be drinking it down. The Sisters and Balladeers are generally nice folk, though. Helpful allies to have, even if they come off as a little crazy. How much of what they believe is True, and how much is correlation being mistaken for causation? I suppose time will tell if they beat us to the Cup.

Today, I was officially barred from the upper board contracts. I suppose that's what has me feeling nostalgic enough to start writing things down. I've gone from making a speech begging people for money, to actually visiting the strangest and most dangerous places. Fighting in a War. Developing a reputation, if I can keep it up. Finding something resembling a Purpose, beyond rewarding myself for surviving. I feel like my time in the Well, and the people I've met, have started to make me more Sane. More like a person, and less like a slave.

I'm glad I'm just clever enough to sound like I know what I'm talking about. Here's to, hopefully, another ninety or so years of freedom.

P.S. If you're reading this while I'm still alive, fuck you. If you're reading this after I've died... Fuck.

Rogue has always had a particular niche in a standard Dungeons and Dragons group, being a skill monkey who can sneak into places, talk their way out of trouble, and take advantage of group melees to get some good damage in.

Unfortunately, that doesn't translate well to Neverwinter Nights, where balance can fall apart completely.

Rogues are in a uniquely bad position. They're the only 3/4 AB class completely reliant on attacks landing in combat that cannot improve their own attack and defenses outside of consumable items. The others - Bard, Cleric, and Monk, all have class mechanics that can allow them to improve their own AB, ignore magical defenses, or get more APR if using certain weapons. Rogue is reliant on attacks landing but falls behind in actually making that happen.

Additionally, the other classes aren't encouraged into a style of play that stops them from improving their own non-sneak-attack damage. Clerics and Druids have powerful spells that can do non-physical damage to wide swathes of enemies and can use certain spells or Wildshapes to improve their fighting capabilities. Bards can buff themselves and use songs to get even more power. Monks have excellent defenses and powerful offensive abilities to supplement their numerous unarmed or kama attacks.

Indeed, the classic counteraction to rogues' weak APR has been dual-wielding, which harms their attack bonus even further. In most servers this gets made up for by access to ability-score improving items that make it only a minor drawback, but on EFU, such items are vanishingly rare and valuable.

Stealth, one of the primary survival tools of a sneak, is also not a reliable way to live on this server. One must hit high levels and have a full set of gear for it to reliably bear any fruit, due to creatures in general having decent spot and listen abilities.

The rogues' d6 hit die is pitiful for a class that can potentially engage in melee combat.

I've found the only reliable way to traverse the server with any safety whatsoever, even the nearest areas to the Peerage Ward, is to have a party consisting of better classes to stand behind shooting enemies with a bow. No other class is so pitifully weak in solo engagements as to be completely incapable of stepping outside of safety to fight basic enemies without having to burn numerous consumables to stay alive.

Finally, they're the only class that must expend a feat not to gain some great advantage but to have decent AB in the first place, if building traditionally.

The perks provided are interesting and can somewhat provide a niche of strength but they're far away from making up for the many weaknesses that make rogues utterly dependent on better adventurers to function on the most basic level without spending one hundred gold worth of consumables to approach the level of any other character.

Therefore, I am proposing the following quality-of-life improvements, to make this one class (that's even called out in the new player survival guide for being awful) more viable in genral:

1. Increase Rogue HD to d8. This will give level 10 rogues and extra 20 HP to work with, which is not much but can make a great amount of difference in survivability for a class that can potentially be involved in melee combat.
2. Give Rogues Weapon Finesse for free at level 2. Make this benefit disappear if they multiclass if you must, but make Rogue a 4 feat class instead of a 3 feat class.
3. Bump the general level of Spot/Listen among enemy monsters down a tad, so that an entire feature doesn't require being level 10, having a perk and a feat, and a full gear set to get any reliable use out of it.
4. Give rogues some reliable way to get one sneak attack in while solo. A 30 second or 1 minute cooldown ability called Underhanded Strike that delivers a normal attack with sneak attack damage if it hits similar to Smite Evil could work for this. This doesn't need to be constant, but it needs to be available enough that stepping outside of town alone isn't a death sentence.

I don't believe any of this will throw off the PvP meta too much, but it will make PvE more tolerable if you're trying to do something minor and don't have an entire guard squad to rely on. After playing the server's opening act as a Rogue and as a Fighter, I've seen how night-and-day it is. Rogue is objectively much more difficult for very little upside- sneak attacks are unreliable and don't work on many creatures, and the skills that enable opening locks and disabling traps don't help you if an orc is trying to kill you and take away 30% of your experience. If three rats is a potential lethal encounter without spending half your rounds using Ash, you're in trouble.

I understand that in the grand scheme of Dungeons and Dragons, the Rogue is a class designed entirely around the existence of a party around them. I counter that with the fact that Neverwinter Nights, as close as it is, is not Dungeons and Dragons, and requiring one character class among all of them to be completely dependent on other players until the highest levels they can reach in exchange for fringe benefits that require specific creature types and not having aggro to function is a little unreasonable.

If this seems like frustrated venting, it is. I welcome counter-arguments. Convince me my lived experience is incorrect.

(For the record I've only died once because I attempted to sneak in a mid-level area despite only being mid-level. This isn't death-venting, it's just that the lessons I've learned haven't given me a good impression.)