by sdonohue

Legendary Rogues was released by Legendary Games in 2015. It is intended for use with Pathfinder Roleplaying Game (1st Edition). It was written by Jason Nelson and Matthew Goodall. It was illustrated by a team of artists.

Presentation
This is available in both pdf and print versions. The print version is soft-cover and perfect-bound. The covers are full color on heavy stock and the interiors are color on matte paper. The book is primarily laid out in two-columns and has enough illustrations and white space.

Content
As with other books in this line, the goal is to bring additional flexibility to the subject class, in this case, the Rogue. The rules are written to support both base rogues and unchained rogues. The book initially focuses on the rogue as a character good at skills and defense and presents additional options.

First, it enhances the rogues ability to master skills. It does this through a process of substitution. Base rogues are specialized at trapfinding, but the book offers additional skill specialties which replace it: Athletic Agility improves climb and balance, Imperceptible improves stealth and concealment, Information Broker grants bonuses on Diplomacy and Knowledge(Local), Interrogation improves Sense Motive and Intimidate skills, Investigation improves Sense Motive and Perception checks, Legerdemain helps with Sleight of Hand, Bluff, and Perception skills, Lithe Gymnast makes the character better at Acrobatics and Escape Artist checks, No Trace improves Disguise and some Stealth checks, Persuasion improves the rogues skill at Intimidate and Diplomacy, Poisoner grants bonuses on Craft (alchemy) checks, Pretender improves Disguise, Smooth Talker improves some Diplomacy and Bluff checks, and finally, Vigilance improves initiative and Perception checks. These new specializations also interact with Skill Unlocks from Pathfinder Unchained.

The next section is called Avoidances. It frames these as alternatives to the trap sense ability. These are also taken in place of trap sense and include Defensive Agility, Elusive Moves, Missile Avoidance, Poison Resistance, Shrewd Countermeasures, Stable Balance, and Unflinching. Each of these abilities allows the character to better sense and avoid one or more common dangers which impact rogues. They are typically a bonus to save or armor class. The book provides another range of options for what it calls instincts; these are generally on a par with Evasion and are offered in place of evasion and other defensive abilities.

The next section is a large one. It rewrites the talents available to rogues. It add some new ones, enhances and combines some of the old ones and generally spends about 8 pages describing the new and revised talents, then ends with a 3 page table summarizing the nearly 100 talents listed in the book. Following the talents is another lengthy section on rogues in combat including alternatives for sneak attack damage.

From this part, with the exception of 10 new feats, it's mostly about actual classes. It starts with the Legendary Rogues, which re-imagines the rogue to give more choices to players, then features a handful of class archetypes, and finally provides a new prestige class, the master thief.

Evaluation
If you like rogues and want more choices, this is a great book. It's hard to imagine a popular rogue that couldn't be built using these rules and the ability to specialize in something other than trapfinding makes things more interesting. There's enough here to make your character an acrobat, a con man, or just about any kind of unsavory character you'd like, even a professional poisoner.

I like the approach of substituting new abilities for old ones, it feels like a simple solution based on things already in place like racial substitution levels or other kinds of archetypes, but without imposing the strict limits those can bring.

This is a great book if you'd like to play a rogue with a different focus. The modular approach makes it more likely a GM will approve the changes without having to own this book.

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