Anyway, my first toon - a Dwarven Noble warrior - died the True Death at level 10 somewhere in the Brecilian Forest. He and his party had picked an unwinnable fight with a Revenant and half a dozen other non-trivial undead, by disturbing a gravestone. That was after defeating a pair of ogres with more luck than expertise, which came after a harrowing two-front battle with three bears on one side and three sylvans on the other.
At that point I decided that I was completely outgunned, and that the auto-levelling system of the game sucked boulders through straws (being new to the game and knowing nothing of the character system I had originally decided to trust that the designers knew what the were doing; that was a tragic mistake, of course).
In order to get some idea what to do with the other party members I played the tutorials for each class and origin, up to Lothering for those I found interesting and up to Ostagar for the others. I found the mage class to be the most powerful but also a bit too complicated to play without any experience regarding which spell chains to pick and how to allocate stats; the melee tank was too passive for my taste, the melee DPS too risky for flying blind (1st playthrough!). I found the idea of a ranged rogue quite attractive but felt that I had to learn a bit about melee rogues first before I went further with that character (i.e. beyond Ostagar). Not to mention that the Dalish Elf culture seems to be all about bows and arrows, but a Dalish Elf ranged rogue excels only by not getting any origin bonus of any kind whatsoever.
So I rolled a Human Noble melee rogue of the dual-wielding persuasion, and so far I'm liking her immensely. So far, I've invested points only in CUN as needed for lock-picking and the rest in DEX, but soon my toon will hit level 7 and then I won't be able to hedge my bets any longer. Either DEX or CUN will have to go beyond the (post-Fade) threshold of 30 which seems to the useful minimum in any case, and I also have to decide on the first specialisation although that will almost certainly be Assassin (Duelist not having been unlocked yet and Bard being the sick joke that it is). So it is time to make a decision; some bridges will have to be burnt, no way around that.
Raising DEX raises attack, defence and (to a lesser extent) damage; points diverted into CUN won't take away anything from damage but attack and defence will suffer. Neglecting CUN entirely is not an option because many of the rogue's abilities depend on it. Also, a few points into CON may be necessary as life insurance, seeing that one of my toons with 12 CON (post-Fade) got taken for 75% of her HP in a single hit by a Greater Shade, and another survived a Fire Ball just barely long enough to throw a healing potion onto her remaining 5 HP.
An all-DEX rogue will be almost unhittable but the hits that do go through will hit hard (especially magic). Damage output will be below par (even with backstabbing), since the DEX contribution to damage is only half of what STR contributes to a warrior's melee damage, unless the crit multiplier can be raised from its 1.5 default to something > 2.
Hence I'm inclined to boost CUN instead. To compare the impact of DEX and CUN I'll fix one at 30 and go all out with the other, although in the actual game I'll likely spend some points on other attributes. Looking at level 20 and factoring in Fade/specialisation bonusses we have a minimum CUN mod of 20 for the 'just barely enough CUN' version and a max of 65 (corresponding to final CUN values of 30 and 75 respectively).
With Lethality, base weapon damage will not change compared to an investment in DEX but armour penetration will rise from 2.9 to 9.3, which is certainly notable. The backstab bonus from Exploit Weakness will rise from 4 to 13, which is very notable indeed. Plus, hardly anyone will be able to pass a resistance check against CUN. However, the attack score needs watching since misses don't do any damage at all. All in all, I'm inclined to favour CUN here because that is how I like my toons: you may be able to hit them hard but they hit you harder. Much harder.
As regards specialisations: Assassin was already mentioned (Exploit Weakness), and it certainly favours CUN. The Duelist also favours CUN, by making up for the deficits of low DEX and because the check for Upset Balance is against CUN. The Bard has nothing to offer beyond Song of Valour, and even that seems rather pathetic. If the numbers in the wiki are correct then the regeneration provided by SoV gives you roughly one extra ability/spell use per minute (0.7 combat regen at CUN 30), and going all out on CUN gives you one small ability/spell per minute extra on top of that (1.1 combat regen). Distraction is 1/4 of Disorient at double the cost, and Song of Courage is too little, too late: 3.5 extra damage might have been useful around the time of Ostagar and Lothering but after that it isn't worth the candle if it costs anything. Going all out on CUN boosts that to 5.25, but 1.75 extra damage isn't worth 35 attribute points. All in all the Bard seems very weak, considering that it only has the not exactly overwhelming Song of Valour to recommend it.
Anyway, having decided on a high-CUN Assassin/Duelist with just enough DEX, the question remains just how much is 'just enough DEX'? The most important point here - at least for me - is the attack score since a compromised ability to hit tends to compromise damage output in a big way. There is also the question of how frequently one has to work under the influence of debuffs like Aura of Weakness and still hit reliably (those pesky Revenants, for example). I'd hate to realise one day that I should have started raising DEX 4 or 5 levels ago, or to realise that my toon is irrevocably gimped in a major way like my first auto-levelled adventurer. Sure, on normal difficulty the PC doesn't have contribute anything since the companions can do all the work on their own, but where's the fun in that? I want my toon to pull her weight.
Overall it seems to me that the game designers were most of all interested in nerfing everything to the point where it is hardly worth the bother (except for Dirty Fighting and some ranged abilities, perhaps), compared to what you could do with abilities (feats) in NWN simply by changing stance and switching from sword + board to a two-hander. By swapping the tin suit for a set of robes on top of that you could go from a turtle tank to melee monster with lots of skelly/zombie splattering potential (Paladin). In Dragon Age you're basically stuck with one choice/style forever, except for Arcane Warriors maybe. Switching equipment around like in NWN just isn't viable because the inventory has been nerfed and dumbed down to the point of pure annoyance, and because you have to invest so much into the shield or two-hander styles to be really effective that you cannot master both.
So, how much DEX (and CON) does a cunning rogue need to keep a playthrough at normal difficulty from becoming a frust fest?
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