Disable Device

[Splendor]

Hello,

I am trying to make a character that can pretty much disable any device.
9th lv, Complete Books only
36,000 gp to spend with 9,000 gp max on one item.

Search (28) (taking 10 I hit DC 38 which will find any trap in the game)
12 ranks + 5 stat + 6 warlocks all seeing eye + 5 goggles of Minute Seeing

Disable Device (21)
12 ranks + 5 stat + 2 MW theives tools + 2 Nimble fingers

I couldn't find any magical items to improve Disable device. I am also carrying a Wand of Guidance (gives +1 to next skill check) to use when needed.

[woodenbandman]

1: I believe that you specifically can't take 10 on search checks for traps
2: +21 should be plenty high, really.

[Milskidasith]

Carry around Skill Shards. It costs 1k for one, and it gives you +10 to the next skill check. Useful if you know that there is a high save, high DC, instakill trap waiting for you. Expensive to use on every trap, though.

[erikun]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/creatingMagicItems.htm

Creating a magic item to grant a skill bonus would be (Bonus squared × 100 gp) base price. That's 10,000 gp for a +10 to Disable Device, or 8,100 gp for a +9 item. Gloves would make the most sense, of course.

[Splendor]

Taking 10
When you are performing a skill where you can take your time, you can skip your die roll and simply assume you had rolled a 10. This is called “taking 10”. You cannot take 10 in situations where you are threatened, hurried, or otherwise distracted.

Unfortunately I dont know if I'm allowed to make magical items. And a 21 on disable device dosn't allow me a good chance to disable anything above 6th level spells.

[sofawall]

Well, normally I would suggest Rogue, but you can only use the Completes, so...

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

None of the classes that get Trapfinding were designed to survive a trap that they fail to find. Their ACs are too low to ever get missed by a trap attack roll, their HP is low enough that most damage traps pose a serious threat, and they have a poor Fort save whereas many traps involve poison. They'll have to be in front while looking for traps, but they don't want to be in front when an encounter occurs. On top of that, most traps cost far more than all the loot in the entire dungeon/lair, so their placement makes no sense at all. Traps only exist in this game to give those characters a sense of purpose, without that they wouldn't even be playable.

Make a Wizard 3/ Master Specialist 4/ Effigy Master 2, learn the Repair Damage spells, cast Summon Monster and have them spring traps for you, or have your Effigy creature (Half-Dragon Dire Lion is a good place to start) stay in front and Repair Damage it whenever it sets one off. That character will actually be useful in a fight, and be infinitely more useful outside of combat. You won't have a squishy Rogue/Scout/Spellthief/whatever shuffling along at half speed twenty feet in front of the rest of the party, searching every tile of floor until he stumbles into a monster and gets ripped in half. Search and Disable Device are two skills that don't even need to be rolled 95% of the time, optimizing them is about as useful as maxing out your Use Rope skill.

[Curmudgeon]

A Chronocharm of the Laughing Rogue will let you reroll a Disable Device check after determining success/failure (Magic Item Compendium).

If you get to Rogue level 10 you can take Skill Mastery as your Rogue special ability and select a number of skills to master; then you can "take 10" on all of them in any circumstances (Use Magic Device excepted). Adding the Savvy Rogue feat boosts all Rogue special abilities, letting you "take 12" on all mastered skills.

[Splendor]

Isn't the "Chronocharm of the Laughing Rogue" only useable 1/day?

[JeminiZero]

Permit me to suggest an alternative: 1 Beguiler (Precocious Apprentice) / 3 Archivist / X Geomancer. Go with Human or Changeling, grab Able Learner on level 1, and you can easily keep Search and Disable maxed out. Since Archivist uses Int as casting stat, you can keep that maxed out, which also boosts Search and Disable. Geomancer (Complete Divine) is not srictly necessary, but since you won't have the skill points to max out knowledge, you might as well ditch Archivist Dark knowledge for a nice PrC which gives you lots of handy Ex abilities (water breath, photosynthesis, low light vision, flight, blindsense etc).

Take Summon elemental reserve feat (Complete Mage) on level 9, and as long as you keep a Summon Monster/Nature Ally 4 spell readied, you can summon a small elemental at will. Nothing says "Trap Bait" like having a a small earth elemental walking 30 feet in front of you at all times. Pick up the elemental languages, and you can even command them to do more complicated things (like open the door/chest, put your hand in the statues mouth etc) while you stand a safe distance back.

Archivist can pick up Divine Insight (complete adventurer) as a level 2 cleric spell. Add caster level +5 insight bonus (to a max of +15) to one skill check. Put that in a wand or something (+8 at CL 3), and you can crank up that search or disable check when you need it.

Archivist is Heroes of Horror, but Wizards posted it online (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20051007a&page=3). If that doesn't fly, then straight cleric works as well (for Divine Insight), but doesn't get high Int bonus.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

The Ultimate Trapmonkey. (http://agc.deskslave.org/comic_viewer.html?goNumber=368) In absence of CMage reserve feats, a Warlock or a wand of Summon Dead Celestial Monkey works, too. The Skillmonkey is the character who is least-suited for dealing with traps.

[Deth Muncher]

Now, I'm mildly confused here. Do you mean to say that you can ONLY use the Complete Series? As in, the PHB is disallowed?

[sofawall]

No, I was being silly. He said only completes in his post, so I went with it. :D

[Curmudgeon]

No, I was being silly. He said only completes in his post, so I went with it. :D
It's not impossible, you know -- at least where classes, feats, and spells are concerned. With the errata establishing that Scouts have Disable Device as a class skill, that's a viable class for the job. But if you take it to the extreme and rule out skills that aren't in the Complete series -- well, all of those are specified in the PH, so you have complete failure.

Seriously, I've had a lot of fun playing in a game that excluded all core classes.

[Foryn Gilnith]

With the errata establishing that Scouts have Disable Device as a class skill, that's a viable class for the job.

Oh, wow. I just avoided scouts because I didn't know they errata'ed that. That's really nice to know...

[AstralFire]

Seriously, I've had a lot of fun playing in a game that excluded all core classes.

Ditto.

Swordsage, Warblade, Crusader, Scout, Hexblade, Duskblade, Warlock, Shugenja, Favored Soul, Warmage, Psion, Wilder, Psychic Warrior, Soulknife is really awesome if you give buffs to the Soulknife and throw in an archery discipline for ToB.

[Curmudgeon]

I've found you get to challenge yourself more when there are some big, obvious restrictions. No Fighter, so going spiked chain is too feat-intensive, right? Well, a Favored Soul of Kossuth gets Exotic Weapon Proficiency (spiked chain), Weapon Focus (spiked chain), and Weapon Specialization (spiked chain) as class features.

No Rogue, so you won't get much sneak attack, right? Well, 3 levels of Ninja and 2 levels of Swashbucker qualifies you to take Daring Outlaw and get the sneak attack dice of a Rogue of all your Swashbuckler levels, in addition to your 2d6 sudden strike.

[Foryn Gilnith]

Sudden Strike counts as sneak attack for the purpose of qualifying for ambush feats. Daring Outlaw is not an ambush feat. That doesn't work.

[Curmudgeon]

Sudden Strike counts as sneak attack for the purpose of qualifying for ambush feats. Daring Outlaw is not an ambush feat. That doesn't work.
Where did you get the idea there was such a limitation? From Complete Adventurer, page 8:
SUDDEN STRIKE AND SNEAK ATTACK
For the purpose of qualifying for feats, prestige classes, and similar options that require a minimum number of sneak attack extra damage dice, treat the ninja’s sudden strike ability as the equivalent of sneak attack. It's certainly not just ambush feats.