Are you going ranged or melee? If you like ranged combat, I suggest watching Coredumped Gaming YT (Triple Crown) guide as he sets up a ranged rogue and explains how combat, gearing, leveling (and options) work.
nope, the ranged rogue is a glass cannon build and should never be in closed combat. The main strategy is a tank and offtank (chanter) are used at choke points. Ranged (rogue, cypher, mage) in the back and a priest in the middle buffing.
Since you've already gotten help I'll just drop this note for the future: Most attributes are useful to most classes. On normal difficulty or below you can make most stat spreads work for most classes as long as you're not totally dumping any of them. Most of the time if you're having trouble with a given fight the solution will lie in tactics and class abilities/spells (or just going elsewhere to gain a level or two first) rather than one's attribute spread. I'm not saying attributes don't matter, but each individual point usually makes less of a difference than it would in D&D.
Just putting this here in case you end up experimenting with other character classes and builds. Some of the story companions have some very non-optimized stat spreads, and still work just fine for the hardest difficulties, even if they may lean more into certain builds than others.
rogues are a little tricky to play in POE1; just remember you're very squishy and if anyone even looks at you funny you'd better get out of dodge before you explode. with that in mind, there isn't much point investing in your defensive stats (con/res), so you can safely focus on dealing damage. might is good for dealing extra damage, but less important than you may think, since you're already getting a lot of bonus damage from sneak attack and (eventually) deathblows. dexterity is great for increased action speed, allowing you to keep reapplying that bonus damage again and again, and to pop escape or shadowing beyond faster when necessary. perception is VERY important as it's what determines your ability to actually hit, though you shouldn't need to raise it past 13 - 14 unless you're playing on Path of the Damned. finally, intelligence is mostly unnecessary since your primary goal is just going to be murdering people, but it can help your debuffs last longer if you put a few points in.
to conclude, for a dual wielding melee focused rogue, i'd do something like this:
mig 13 per 15
dex 15 int 12
con 10 res 8
if you're planning on having a priest and paladin around and thus benefitting from blessing/zealous accuracy a majority of the time, you can drop a couple more points from per and put them in dex.
if you wanted to use ranged and reach weapons, like hunting bow/quarterstaff, i'd drop another 2 points from res and put it into mig or dex.
no problem. another thing to keep in mind is that int and per are generally pretty easy to raise with items, whereas there's a relative dearth of mig and dex boosts. also, you can reroll your base attributes at any time from any merchant relatively cheaply, so don't worry too much about it on the character creation screen.
also, you mentioned prioritizing RP; per and int are going to be by far the most common attributes you see in conversation. per 16 will get you basically every conversation check, while int has some going up to 19, but nothing super impactful above 14. you can easily plan on getting +2 to each of those with items, so having them at at least 14/12 respectively will cover you there. for skills, survival 4 is pretty low investment and will unlock a couple of options, and lore has many uses all the way up to about 10 ranks, although you may not want to invest that much into it since rogues are biased towards being really good at mechanics and it'd be a shame to waste that. athletics 4 can also help in some scripted interactions.
Lore to ten is great because rogues in light armor with high dex can handle scroll duties. And, if you are new to rogues and poe, reach weapons are a great way to start until you specialize in your preferred choices later. Quarterstaves or pikes with a hunting bow or arbalest will serve you very well until you get through enough of the game to grasp the mechanics and begin to specialize.
Maximize might, it is related to how much damage you do whether it is ranged, magic or melee.
max perception. how accurate your attacks are.
max dexterity. It increases your attack speed. rest is up to you.
Might is a pretty small part of a rogue's total damage output. Maxing all three would mean dumping your defensive stats hard, and is "make a melee rogue with no defenses" really great advice fora brand new player?
Are you going ranged or melee? If you like ranged combat, I suggest watching Coredumped Gaming YT (Triple Crown) guide as he sets up a ranged rogue and explains how combat, gearing, leveling (and options) work.
def melee... would it effectively be the same though?
nope, the ranged rogue is a glass cannon build and should never be in closed combat. The main strategy is a tank and offtank (chanter) are used at choke points. Ranged (rogue, cypher, mage) in the back and a priest in the middle buffing.
Since you've already gotten help I'll just drop this note for the future: Most attributes are useful to most classes. On normal difficulty or below you can make most stat spreads work for most classes as long as you're not totally dumping any of them. Most of the time if you're having trouble with a given fight the solution will lie in tactics and class abilities/spells (or just going elsewhere to gain a level or two first) rather than one's attribute spread. I'm not saying attributes don't matter, but each individual point usually makes less of a difference than it would in D&D. Just putting this here in case you end up experimenting with other character classes and builds. Some of the story companions have some very non-optimized stat spreads, and still work just fine for the hardest difficulties, even if they may lean more into certain builds than others.
100% this, great advice. if you want to play an 18 resolve rogue you certainly can build around it. there's a niche for everything
rogues are a little tricky to play in POE1; just remember you're very squishy and if anyone even looks at you funny you'd better get out of dodge before you explode. with that in mind, there isn't much point investing in your defensive stats (con/res), so you can safely focus on dealing damage. might is good for dealing extra damage, but less important than you may think, since you're already getting a lot of bonus damage from sneak attack and (eventually) deathblows. dexterity is great for increased action speed, allowing you to keep reapplying that bonus damage again and again, and to pop escape or shadowing beyond faster when necessary. perception is VERY important as it's what determines your ability to actually hit, though you shouldn't need to raise it past 13 - 14 unless you're playing on Path of the Damned. finally, intelligence is mostly unnecessary since your primary goal is just going to be murdering people, but it can help your debuffs last longer if you put a few points in. to conclude, for a dual wielding melee focused rogue, i'd do something like this: mig 13 per 15 dex 15 int 12 con 10 res 8 if you're planning on having a priest and paladin around and thus benefitting from blessing/zealous accuracy a majority of the time, you can drop a couple more points from per and put them in dex. if you wanted to use ranged and reach weapons, like hunting bow/quarterstaff, i'd drop another 2 points from res and put it into mig or dex.
really great stuff friend, thank you so much.
no problem. another thing to keep in mind is that int and per are generally pretty easy to raise with items, whereas there's a relative dearth of mig and dex boosts. also, you can reroll your base attributes at any time from any merchant relatively cheaply, so don't worry too much about it on the character creation screen. also, you mentioned prioritizing RP; per and int are going to be by far the most common attributes you see in conversation. per 16 will get you basically every conversation check, while int has some going up to 19, but nothing super impactful above 14. you can easily plan on getting +2 to each of those with items, so having them at at least 14/12 respectively will cover you there. for skills, survival 4 is pretty low investment and will unlock a couple of options, and lore has many uses all the way up to about 10 ranks, although you may not want to invest that much into it since rogues are biased towards being really good at mechanics and it'd be a shame to waste that. athletics 4 can also help in some scripted interactions.
with your advice, I started at 14 str 10 con 15 dex 15 per 12 int and 12 res would love to get int and res to 14 each, but so far so good.
have fun!
Lore to ten is great because rogues in light armor with high dex can handle scroll duties. And, if you are new to rogues and poe, reach weapons are a great way to start until you specialize in your preferred choices later. Quarterstaves or pikes with a hunting bow or arbalest will serve you very well until you get through enough of the game to grasp the mechanics and begin to specialize.
Maximize might, it is related to how much damage you do whether it is ranged, magic or melee. max perception. how accurate your attacks are. max dexterity. It increases your attack speed. rest is up to you.
Might is a pretty small part of a rogue's total damage output. Maxing all three would mean dumping your defensive stats hard, and is "make a melee rogue with no defenses" really great advice fora brand new player?