Sun Soul Rogue.

[Avelent]

Hello,

I am a bit confused about the Sun Soul monk order. The rules state

"Members of the Sun Soul order can gain levels in one other class (except rogue)** and still progress as a monk as long as their monk level is their highest class level."

and

""Lawful Good" Rogues are not allowed on this server and not an option as a multiclass for monks here.**"

It says except rogue which means you can't multi class as a rogue if your a Sun Soul, but sense its crossed out that implies that you can. That in conjunction with the foot note on the rules page for monk order which seems to remind players that lawful good rogues are not allowed would lead me to believe that a Sun Soul rogue is playable as long as its not lawful good?

Thanks,
-Avelent

[Snubletraad]

But since all monks are lawful, you would only be able to take rogue levels if your alignment shifted before multiclassing.

You would then hit a barrier when your rogue levels are 1 level below your monk levels. Will you then Work towards altering your alignment Again or do you only proceed as a rogue from then on?

Personally, I've always thought that changing your alignment isn't a conscious action. It's who and what you are, dictated by your actions. The above example would only be possible if you speculate in alignment changes.

[Snubletraad]

Just to clarify posting in the DM Q&A thread.

I replied as a staff member.

[Avelent]

You don't have to change your alignment at all. Rogues can be lawful just not lawful good. I don't think you understood my question ^_^

[Snubletraad]

It used to be that no "Lawful" rogues were allowed, which is what prompted my reply. Why it was changed to "Lawful Good" specifically, I don't know.

I can see how the two rules conflict now or at least don't coincide. kalbaern will probably clarify when he gets the chance.

[kalbaern]

May 3, 2015 5:23:43 GMT -5 Snubletraad said:

It used to be that no "Lawful" rogues were allowed, which is what prompted my reply. Why it was changed to "Lawful Good" specifically, I don't know.

I can see how the two rules conflict now or at least don't coincide. kalbaern will probably clarify when he gets the chance.

Yeah, I decided to be a bit more lenient with regards to the alignments. One could interpret "laws" as many things and which "laws" one follows may sometimes conflict with others. IE, a paladin might simply choose not to enforce laws in a land that go against the laws of his faith. A LN Rogue could respect local laws and employ their skills in exploring ancient tombs, infiltrating enemy areas and other things not against their own laws per se. Being a lawful rogue however, could have implications if trying to join certain guilds though.

As applies to the monk order in the OP, it would be expected that the monk choose and use skills and feats that would compliment his monastic calling. IE, monks taking rogue levels and dumping points into appraise or pick pocket, especially in this case, would not be following the tenets of their order. Hide, move silently, trap and lock skills would help them to fulfill roles as retrievers of lost artifacts for their order.

[Avelent]

Thanks, makes sense. ^_^

[Wids]

May 3, 2015 15:38:18 GMT -5 kalbaern said:

As applies to the monk order in the OP, it would be expected that the monk choose and use skills and feats that would compliment his monastic calling. IE, monks taking rogue levels and dumping points into appraise or pick pocket, especially in this case, would not be following the tenets of their order. Hide, move silently, trap and lock skills would help them to fulfill roles as retrievers of lost artifacts for their order.

Late reply is late, I know.  Sorry for not being around three years ago.  

One thing that I liked about D&D 3 was how it got rid of the idea that all jack-of-all-trades characters had to be thieves, by way of replacing the Thief class with the Rogue class.  Not every Rogue needs to be a thief; your Rogue can still be a Rogue without knowing a lick about picking locks and picking pockets (though it grates soundly against stereotypes).

In my play-by-forum-post D&D 3rd campaign over at Illusion Vale, many of the kingdoms and nations in my homebrew world keep agencies of Lawful Rogues — some of them Lawful Good — as spies, scouts and interrogators.  Up until he was slain in a last stand against forces from the Eternal Empire invading the Grand Gallery of his own palace, the tsar of Karkova (my now-collapsed-into-anarchy analogue of medieval Russia as it was at some point between Grand Prince Yury I and Ivan the Terrible) had the Stali Muzcinami, who were Karkova's secret police; some of them might have ranks in Open Locks and Disable Traps for the purpose of sneaking into homes and gathering evidence against the occupants (or, for the more corrupt Lawful Evil sorts among the Stali, planting false evidence in a suspect's home for their investigating comrades to find), but their skill points are chiefly focused on social skills such as Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Innuendo and Intimidation.  Rogues take to these skills quite well, and as the Stali Muzcinami were tasked with ferreting out dissension, sedition and treason in the people's midst before such vices had a chance to flourish and spread, then it made sense to create the Stali as Rogues for the spies and investigators, and Rogue/Fighters for the enforcers (though the Stali also trained and maintained a number of Rogue/Monks in the Fist of the Tsar order to help deal with domestic threats posed by wizards and other spellcasters).  The Stali had their ups and downs throughout history, depending on who was their High Minister; whenever the High Minister was Lawful Good, the Stali were largely employed as clandestine agents of justice and protectors of the people, but whenever a Lawful Evil High Minister took the reigns, the Stali became disturbingly Gestapo-like in practice, and subsequent High Ministers would need to invest plenty of time and effort into reversing the social damage to Karkovan society and restoring the people's trust.

So I've never seen any problem with Lawful Rogues myself, including Lawful Good ones.  Even the thief-like Rogues can stay within the confines of Law and Good, keeping their skills in harmless practice until the time comes when they must creep up behind the evil archmage, snatch his unholy Doomsday relic and destroy it before he has a chance to unleash it.