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View Full Version : Best advancement in to Unseen seer PrC 3.5



Stormageddon
2009-04-15, 11:10 PM
Question is in the title. What is the fastest/best way to start taking levels in Unseen Seer?

Chronos
2009-04-15, 11:46 PM
You can do it with no loss of spellcasting after 6th level, if I'm not mistaken. Start with five levels of wizard, then take a level of Ruathar (Races of the Wild) to get Hide, Search, and Spot as class skills. With a high enough Int and a race with an Int bonus or human, I think you can pull off all of the skill prerequisites with a single Ruathar level (Able Learner (Races of Destiny) will also help with this, if human). This method will not give you any precision damage to advance via Unseen Seer, so that class feature would be wasted, but you can still get that with no casting loss, too, if you're patient: Take Martial Study (Tome of Battle) in any shadow hand maneuver, and then at level 12 (or 10, if you have a way to pick up a feat then, such as the wizard alternate class feature that gives you fighter feats instead of metamagic) take Martial Stance: Assassin's Stance for 2d6 sneak attack.

Frosty
2009-04-15, 11:55 PM
Beguilers offer a pain-free way of entering.

Baalthazaq
2009-04-16, 12:59 AM
What you need are the skills. Rogue gets them fast enough, then take a level of wizard.

But... what do you want to be doing as an unseen seer?

Sinfire Titan
2009-04-16, 01:16 AM
Pure Wizard method:

Books required:
Lords of Madness
Tome of Battle
Complete Mage
Complete Arcane
Spell Compendium
PHB
Unearthed Arcana
DMG
Exemplars of Evil (optional)

Wizard 3/Master Specialist 4/Wizard +2/Keeper of the Cerulean Sign 2/Unseen Seer 8/Archmage 1

Entry Caveats:

Feat Wizard ACF (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#wizard)
Focused Specialist (Divination)

Get the Assassin's Stance by staggering Wizard and MS levels until you hit Wizard 5 at 9th level, which gives you two feats. Either one of them can be used, as you can also swap Scribe Scroll for Martial Study so you have the Hide half for free. You meet the Unseen Seer requirements at 11th level. Nets 5d6 Sneak Attack, more if you find a way to get into Keeper before 11th. +3 for Divination spells, no other CL loss. Use Martial Study to get Hide as a class skill, this gets you the entry requirements for Keeper of the Cerulean Sign. After 2 levels of Keeper, you qualify for Unseen Seer. Finish with Archmage.


Method 2:

Spellthief 1/Wizard 5/Unseen Seer 8/Arcane Trickster 6


Needs Master Spellthief, and looses a level of spells (which is why I prefer the first method, you lose nothing but feats and even then you are getting something from them).

Saph
2009-04-16, 01:58 AM
Honestly, I'd just go Rogue 1 / Wizard 4 with Able Learner and Practised Spellcaster.

Taking Rogue as your first level instead of Wizard gets you all those nice skillpoints, and if you're making an Unseen Seer odds are skillmonkey is your primary role anyway.

This needs 3 books: Complete Mage for Unseen Seer, Races of Destiny for Able Learner, and Complete Divine (IIRC) for Practised Spellcaster. You lose 1 casting level, but IMO this is the easiest/fastest way.

- Saph

742
2009-04-16, 02:12 AM
rog2/wiz3. that evasion is great if your DM likes to use wizards. or target wizards. yeah you lose spellcasting, but, evasion. (to be fair, i am an evasion fangirl, and all but two of my 3.5 characters have had it)

Baalthazaq
2009-04-16, 02:28 AM
Yeah, saying as the only entry requirements are skills, just take "Able Learner" then whatever classes you want.

Keld Denar
2009-04-16, 02:30 AM
Rogue or Spellthief1/Wizard4/USS10/AT5 is a pretty common build. Swap a level or 2 of AT with Archmage if you can swing the feats. Not really needed though.

Saph, Practiced Spellcaster is in both Complete Arcane AND Complete Divine. You are techinically correct...the best kind of correct. :P

Chronos
2009-04-16, 07:40 PM
Wizard 3/Master Specialist 4/Wizard +2/Keeper of the Cerulean Sign 2/Unseen Seer 8/Archmage 1If Keeper of the Cerulean Sign is just there to get skills in-class, then Ruatha is a better choice, since all it requires is being able to cast 3rd-level spells, and has all the needed skills (with 4 points per level).

And your bonus feat for Assassin's Stance needs to be at 10th level, not 9th: Assassin's Stance is a 3rd-level maneuver, meaning you need to have an initiator level of 5, meaning that (with no ToB classes) you need a character level of 10.

Also, there's no need to go Focused Specialist, or even specialist at all if you have some other PrC you can qualify for early enough to delay Wiz 5 to CL 10. Though specializing (non-focused) in divination probably isn't a bad idea if you're going into USS.

Keld Denar
2009-04-16, 08:17 PM
I find Conjouration is a decent school to specialize for USS. Beyond the fact that Conjouration is the best to specialize in in about 9/10 situation, it has a tasty number of ranged touch spells between all the Orb spells that you can easily fill all the spell slots you need with Orbs and Metamagic'd Orbs for sneak attacking Wizard mode.

Eldariel
2009-04-16, 08:54 PM
I find Conjouration is a decent school to specialize for USS. Beyond the fact that Conjouration is the best to specialize in in about 9/10 situation, it has a tasty number of ranged touch spells between all the Orb spells that you can easily fill all the spell slots you need with Orbs and Metamagic'd Orbs for sneak attacking Wizard mode.

Yeah, it's really a pity how Conjuration suddenly jumped into the best school - as a pure specialization, it's fairly equal with Illusion and Transmutation, but as they added stuff to the specializations, it was pretty much always Conjuration that got the long straw (Abrupt Jaunt vs. Sudden Shift/Brief Figment, Master Specialist [although Illusion arguably got the better Minor School Esoterica], Enhanced Summoning vs...right, Rapid Summoning vs. Chain of Disbelief/Enhance Attribute - the only thing one of the other two schools wins out at is the level 5 Unearthed Arcana ability and that happens to take the same feat as Spontaneous Divination).

Although some specific builds are better off with other specializations, such as Shadowcraft Mage (Illusion) & Initiate or a generic dispeller (Abjuration, due to Master Specialist-abilities; as a specialization, it's weak), by and large Conjuration wins out be it a generic Wizard or a Summoner or a focused Controller. Bleh, sorry for the rant in this thread - got carrier away.

Keld Denar
2009-04-16, 09:59 PM
Don't forget Cloudy Conjourations, one of the most badass speciality feats. The only one that even comes close is Frightful Necromancy, or maybe Unsettling Enchantment. UE is really good, but it suffers the same flaw as the whole school of Enchantment...

Yea, back in 2nd ed, Conjouration was mostly laughable. 3ed ed, and 3.5 in particular really kicked it into high gear!

faustooctavo
2010-08-19, 06:09 AM
As for my self, i'm about to start my US and my template is skill monkey focused, spellcasting is cast aside but keept as full as posible.

The only hard thing to remember will be that i'm not the team's caster, thats an extra, but i think well played it's got a lot of flavor, high utility for the team and decent solo mode when needed.

Rogue4/Wizard1/US10/Abjurant Champion5

dobu
2010-08-19, 06:20 AM
as a skillmonkey I wouldn't take Abj. Champ. because it only gives you 2+INT skill points. go for urban savant instead :-)