Introduction and Team Concept

This variant is intended for play on Diablo II Expansion, under patch 1.10 or later.

CONCEPT

The Sorceress class embodies most of the magic skills from the original Diablo. Key among these is teleport. The D2 Amazon is rooted to the spot and relies on her pet to tank for her. This combined with all the bow related skills means she doesn't play like the D1 Rogue at all. Tactically, some things carry over, but strategically and in terms of gameplay... no. It's not a match. The D1 Rogue had sorcerous powers at a lower level than a true sorcerer, had teleport mobility, and had only normal attack type. Thus the sorcie is the closest match. She can teleport, support herself with "limited" magic, and must use normal attack.

DEXTERITY

Approximately half of your attribute points should be assigned to Dexterity. You should be able to block at the rate shown on a shield, or better. (Some leeway is allowed, temporarily. If you need more strength, for example, to use a key piece of equipment, you can slack off on dex for a level or two, but you need to catch it back up afterward.)

BOWS

Your bow is your primary weapon. Crossbows are allowed, but keep in mind that Enchant damage will be independent of bow damage or dexterity, and will be more effective with higher attack rates.

MELEE WEAPONS

Rogues may keep two bows in their weapon slots, or may carry any weapon type they please in the second slot. This includes throwing potions, throwing weapons, and melee weapons, as well as a second bow. Shields are also allowed. A rogue can swap and "go melee" any time she pleases. With all that dexterity, blocking may even be useful. In a team situation, some rogues tanking with shields while others shoot from behind is perfectly acceptable, but no rogue should forsake her bow entirely, so "melee-only" rogues are not acceptable. Since all Rogues will know how to teleport, none should ever "need" a tank to protect her.

ENCHANT

All D2 Rogues are to max Enchant as soon as possible. This because the AR boost is needed, and the fire damage doesn't hurt either.

TELEPORT

All D2 Rogues must obtain the Teleport skill. How much to use it is player's discretion.

PETS

No pets. Sorry. No mercs!

PRIMARY MAGIC SKILL

Each Rogue may obtain a primary magic skill. This will be her special spell, used to supplement her fighting prowess, take down physical immunes, and give her a means of corpse recovery "in extremis" other than quitting and rejoining the game.

ONLY ONE primary skill per character is allowed. Primary skills are unlimited in skill level.

A Rogue may pick one primary skill from the following list of options:
* Firebolt
* Icebolt
* Charged Bolt
* Inferno
* Frost Nova
* Ice Blast
* Fireball
* Lightning

SECONDARY MAGIC SKILL

A Rogue may also select one Secondary skill, under the following restrictions:
1) Each secondary skill endures a maximum skill level restriction.
2) Secondary skills MAY NOT exceed 50% of the current skill level of the character's primary skill.

The following skills are available as secondary skills, with the applicable level caps:

* Nova, up to slvl 10.
* Firewall, up to slvl 8.
* Chain Lightning, up to slvl 10.
* Glacial Spike, up to slvl 10.
* Meteor, up to slvl 5.
* Thunderstorm, up to slvl 5.
* Blizzard, up to slvl 5.
* Hydra, up to slvl 8.
* Frozen Orb, up to slvl 5.

NOTE: during the final Hell run for fourth dot, some skills (like Thunderstorm) may be unusable in the "friendly fire" environment!

MASTERIES

Cold or Lightning Mastery may not exceed slvl 10. No restriction on Fire Mastery.

+SKILL ITEMS

Not allowed. Repeat: NOT ALLOWED. (Exception: initial staff as a weapon ONLY, until it is replaced.)

STATIC FIELD and BLAZE

Not allowed except as prereq. Do not use these skills!

ITEMS WITH CHARGES

Knock yourself out. However, if you need a recharge, you have to pay your own way.

RED ROGUES

* MAY NOT add to Energy!
* Must run with more life than mana. (Not counting Act One grace period in normal difficulty.)
* Must max out a cold armor of their choice before entering Hell Difficulty.
* May not learn nor use Energy Shield.

BLUE ROGUES

* MAY NOT add to Vitality!
* Must run with more mana than life (Exception: grace period until reaching clvl 24).
* Cold armor is allowed but optional. How much and when is player's discretion.
* Must learn Energy Shield.
* Must use Energy Shield at ALL times (after reaching clvl 24, of course).
* Must get Telekinesis to slvl 7 before entering Nightmare difficulty, and slvl 14 before entering Hell.
* Must get Energy Shield to slvl 3 before Nightmare and slvl 7 before Hell.
* Blue Rogues allowed to use Telekinesis as an attack skill, if they wish (in addition to primary/secondary).

NOTE: Blue Rogue rules edited to reflect need for Telekinesis synergy to make Energy Shield effective!

ROGUE REVIVAL TEAM VARIANT

* Weapons, not magic, are a sister's primary tools. Any Rogue who kills more foes with her magic than with her weaponry is a disgrace to the sisterhood. Do not disgrace yourself in the eyes of your sisters!
* Primary and secondary skills allowed to be used at any time, as long as you do not disgrace yourself. However, ONLY these two skills are allowed. No temporary use of prereqs! If you don't have either magic skill available early in Normal, then you are weapons-only until your skills come online.
* Rogues are a tight sisterhood. They may not play with any characters except sister Rogues. (This means they play only with fellow team members, in private team games. No "passersby" or "guests", no joining RBD games or AB games, etc.)
* Only Rogues are allowed in the sisterhood! No Amazons, no Paladins, no regular Sorcies, etc.
* If a Rogue "leaves" the sisterhood, she may play with other characters but never return to the team.
* No twinking. Use what you can find, buy, or make for yourself. This is a pure team concept.
* No "variant within the variant". You can run a rogue solo any way you like, but no macho stuff when playing as part of a team. Follow the rules and play within them to your full potential.
* Each Rogue should be viable solo, allowing players who miss a night (and any quests) to catch up on their own.
* Any number of players may play, up to the maxium 8 of course. Since Rogues are all the same -- except for Red or Blue, items, and magic skill choices -- team members may be added or subtracted at any time without disrupting the effectiveness of fellow team members.
* Any late-starting players who are trying to "catch up" and "join the team" must build their chars solo, in isolation. There are no exceptions to the purity concept. If you are to prove yourself to your sisters and join the order, you must show discipline and commitment!
* Although this team variant is highly flexible, it is not meant to be played in "pickup" fashion. Any true team variant requires regular gaming nights and scheduled activity.

4-DOTTING THE TEAM

Completing Normal earns the first dot, Nightmare the second, Hell the third. If the team 3-dots as a group and players want to continue, then restart Hell in unpartied fashion and go hostile with all fellow Rogues. Complete Hell in "Friendly Fire", played D1 style, to earn that "fourth dot". Since all chars will have completed the quests already, REMAIN HOSTILE AT ALL TIMES. None of that "party up for quests" stuff.

Be careful not to shoot your sisters in the back! And don't overdo those secondary magic skills, either. This isn't meant to be a "beyond naked" type of experience.

- Sirian

These rules proved to deliver a character that indeed plays much more like the Rogue class from the original Diablo than the Sorceress. As far as the players themselves, this team variant was organized on the Realms Beyond forums, and the following people were part of the rogue team:

Player Name	Character Name	Rogue Type	Primary Skill	Secondary Skill
Sirian	Red_Rover	Red	Icebolt	Frozen Orb
ME0003	MoonGrabber	Red	Icebolt	Chain Lightning
Jaffa	Varecia	Blue	Fireball	Hydra
Cyrene	CyMakeSticksFly	Blue	Lightning	Chain Lightning
Hawkmoon	Garnet_Electra	Red	Charged Bolt	Chain Lightning
Sulla	Svava	Red	Frost Nova	Glacial Spike
Dathon	Red_RidingHood	Red	Inferno	Meteor
AlanSHB*	AcmeArchery	Blue	Fireball	Hydra
ErickSinda*	Artemis_Red	Red	Ice Blast	Glacial Spike

* Alan played with the Rogues up to Hell Act One, Erick joined up with us from there.

If any of this information is incorrect, please let me know. I decided to go with Frost Nova as my primary skill due to its large radius of chilling effect. The damage certainly wouldn't be killing anything beyond Act 1 Normal, but even in Hell I would still be getting over 2 seconds worth of chilling cold on whatever it hit. I chose Glacial Spike as my secondary trait in order to have some way of killing resurrecting enemies; Svava (in case you couldn't tell, that's me) was very much in demand when we had revivable minions in some of the later stages of the quest. Looking at all of the other choices, we ended up with a good balance of fire/lightning/cold traits to deal with the elemental-immune monsters in Hell. I wanted to be a Red Rogue because I confess I didn't really understand how the Energy Shield/Telekenesis synergy worked, and I was a little bit afraid to play a character who could not add to Vitality. My goal with Svava was to create a character who could swap between bow and melee as the situation dictated, and who would also be sturdy enough to survive whatever came. Half of all points (all even-numbered level ups) went into Dexterity as per the rules. The target strength was 103, which would let me use almost all of the elite bows and some elite armors, with everything else (naturally) in vitality. The high strength meant that I got some nice donations from party members on items with strength requirements. Finally, the name "Svava" is the name of one of the Valkyries from Norse mythology. Some of the other rogues had more "clever" names.

With the setup finished, it was time to get started and see how this team played out!