Boots of speed stealth off, run your elf around a dungeon with traps, you will hit them before you see them.

I never had the issue you have with human, because stealth on is enough to slow down to detect traps, there is no need to enable search mode as well. I never use it, never have a problem.

IMO in either case you need High search skill + stealth (to slow down a bit) and you are golden. Same point I made above. Damage is there for the ubiquitous sneak immune like undead where you will want every point of damage because not only are they sneak immune they often have damage reduction. If you could sneak attack everything, then even strength would be pointless, and all rogues would just be Dex Build sneak attack machines kill all in their path. But it isn't like that. Campaigns are full of sneak immune with DR, so the extra damage from WS/EWS is a big deal. I had a look. Typical Build for level 40 mentality, can't use anything but rogue weapons/armor until Level 11, doesn't get Shadowdancer to Level 21 !

I make my build for maximum play-ability early on. Weapons and Armor from Level 2, SD from level 8. You complain about my build taking Blind Fight at level 12. The same level you take it. ;)

The build is wasting a feat on Stealthy (and one could argue Iron Will as well). It gains you nothing. +2 sneak isn't going to make or break the build. A DEX based Rogue would have significant advantages while sneaking over a STR based one so you don't need to try and "make up the difference". That feat would be better placed almost anywhere else - like Toughness, Blind Fight etc.

Basically, as a Fighter you are losing out on +5 to all saves and Keen Senses for a little more damage against crit immunes. You also end up with more feats than you need, hence the wasted feats in your plan.

Although the other point you make is valid - a STR based sneaker is very viable and I agree, much better in the long run than a DEX based one. It's unfortunate that NWN 1 never included Epic Precision, because that would change things. A STR based Rogue can actually get a really decent AC with a Large Shield, which only slightly impacts his ability to sneak (again, completely negligible in real terms).

Meh, Peter is right there I think. The advantages are clear - access to all Rogue skills, good melee fighter AND fair sneaker with the addition of loads of extra damage against most enemies. It fills a number of rolls well, where-as a Fighter doesn't do much apart from stand there hitting stuff.

If you are walking around in Search mode at half speed, The Elf can do the same while searching AND sneaking at the same speed. There is literally no reason you can tell me that having Keen Senses isn't a plus for any character interested in detecting traps.

EWS is a nice feat, sure, but you don't need it here at all. You have STR and you have sneak dice. A standard Fighter needs all he can get since they are a one-trick-pony, this character is not. It does not NEED it. So, I don't agree at all, but I sense where this is going and realise you are not one to take criticism well. My arguing the case here will only fall on deaf ears.

Not at all - I make the builds for 1-40 play (not that that is ever possible). It plays well at low level so you are talking rubbish here. Infact at this point it looks like you are clutching at straws, so as I said above, I will leave it there. If you want to shuffle levels around you can - the level split works, as does lower level play and it is much better as an Elf.

Anyway, I will leave it there. Hope whatever you end up playing works for you.

Why not do both? Do you have something against versatility?

Destroy the regular enemies with devastating sneak attacks + strength from the shadows. Or use stealth to deal with unique enemies first, then crush the rest. But have the power to deal with the sneak immune.

My build is essentially the best of both worlds. You can choose to stealth and attack from shadows when you want to, when it is advantageous, and you are strong enough to stand toe to toe and do big damage on sneak immune undead.

Approaching from stealth, lets you control the battle. You can just walk in, sneak up to the mage, and take him out usually in one round from the combo of sneak damage, plus big strength (and big weapon as is my favorite). Then great cleave one of his buddies. Is there another mage? Poof! back into the shadows, to take out the other mage. All the mages are down. Now I can just Rambo the room on straight fighting power now the that mages dealt with form stealth.

So we are now comparing against your build?

I think you are grasping at straws when you complain that I am wasting feats, then complain that I have more feats than necessary. I have the luxury of choosing some utility feats. I get everything critical as early as you do, or earlier.

My character would have more Hitpoints early on, more weapons choice early on, better armor early on, better BAB early on, Weapon Focus earlier, etc.

The hardest point of RPG is typically low level, and my character is much stronger early on than your build. Reading comprehension problem? I NEVER use search mode. It's not necessary. I only use stealth to search. So elf or human I move the same speed while I am stealth mode, automatically searching.

Search mode doesn't actually boost your search score, it just increases the amount of times you search, so you will find the same stuff on/off. You just need a good search score.

I have played MANY Elf, Halfling and Human rogues, while keen senses sound great, it really doesn't have as big an effect in actual gameplay as it sounds on paper.

Sure it's a benefit. But it's a very small one, that you keep blowing out of proportion. He wanted a Shadow Dancer, and you don't even get to that in either of the original campaigns (OC/SoU). You delay it for level 21 so you can have one more BAB in Epic.

You build is "playable"(what isn't?) at low level, but is demonstrably weaker at lower levels because you are sacrificing low level play-ability for a minor advantage in epic levels. As I said, typical level 40 build mentality.

As I already mentioned, you don't need active search mode. You are always searching, automatically.

Search mode does not increase you search score. It just makes you search more often.

So if you keep you search score up, you will find everything without ever going into search mode.

I NEVER do the search+stealth thing because it is totally unnecessary. In fact I NEVER use search mode.

Stealth is an effective search mode, since it slows you down enough so you can find traps before you trip over them.

In practice, keen senses doesn't impact that much, it only does if you are under the impression that you need to use active search mode.

Edit: If I thought Active Search Mode was some kind of necessity, I would agree whole heartedly that Keen Senses is a killer feature. But given how search actually works and the lack of any real need to turn it on, the features value falls significantly, to the point that it really doesn't enter the race selection equation IMO.

According to you, search mode makes you search more often. More search checks means I can move faster while still finding the traps because I'm rolling the dice more often.

No, using active search mode isn't necessary. Being able to move faster while still finding the traps IS a quality-of-life improvement for the player, though. YMMV of course, but I'll happily trade a feat and 1 skill point per level for such a gameplay improvement (along with the rest of the elf bonuses).

However, I just remembered that an Elf incurs the Multi-class XP penalty for mixing Fighter and Rogue unevenly. SD, as a prestige class, isn't an issue, but the uneven Fight and Thief levels are. THAT would make me drop Elf for Human.

Again. It isn't that different in practice. You scan twice/round with full Search score in active mode/keen sense. You scan once/round, still with your full search score in passive mode.

In theory you could run a bit faster but you really don't have stable variable speed in NWN, so you choose between full speed and stealth to slow you down, and the difference for an extra search check, is NOT enough to be the difference between full speed and stealth, which are really your only two choices.

So in reality you are in stealth mode in either case, so moving exactly the same speed.

I think the crux of the disagreement comes down to people using Active Search unnecessarily with non elf characters. Next time you play a non elf rogue. Skip using it, use stealth instead, just like you would with an Elf and see what happens. Though do keep your search score maxed. I don't think you will notice much difference.

Edit: I will add that Keen Senses is a very valuable feat playing online in PVP settings. Because it is much better at detecting stealth characters. Because for Listen/Spot your score is cut in half in passive mode, you pretty much have no chance of detecting dedicated sneakers without active mode, and of course you need to know that you should be looking, so Keen Senses is almost a must have if dealing with PVP sneakers. But sneakers are much less prevalent in the NWN campaigns and there are so many things to put points into, it is hard to have enough spare skillpoints to max spot or listen.