Touch Attack Assassin build help (3.5)

[AzureDistress]

can someone please guide my mind with a bizarre idea I thought of today while roaming through crystalkeep's spell list for d&d 3.5. I saw several spells that had interesting names and more interesting effects. I won't start naming names, but a few of the effects include touch attacks that either damage or drain stats, and things that granted cover and stealth bonuses.

What this brought to me was a simple idea: how could I make a character that acted like a shadow/spectre/wraith, being invisible and sucking away the enemy's stats before killing them. Is this possible? I want it to be effective in combat, and hopefully not with a huge list of spells/maneuvers to prepare every day.

Lets assume that all books are open, and that the lv. is between 7-10 w/ standard gold

Help??

[Boci]

Could go Gnome wizard / rogue / some hybrid PrC using the spellrazor to attack and use a touch spell. Alternativly, I believe the dagger spell mage allows you to do this without spending a feat.
Could be a more standard gish using smiting spell, possibly using ACF of the fighter to make stealth more of an option.

[golentan]

can someone please guide my mind with a bizarre idea I thought of today while roaming through crystalkeep's spell list for d&d 3.5. I saw several spells that had interesting names and more interesting effects. I won't start naming names, but a few of the effects include touch attacks that either damage or drain stats, and things that granted cover and stealth bonuses.

What this brought to me was a simple idea: how could I make a character that acted like a shadow/spectre/wraith, being invisible and sucking away the enemy's stats before killing them. Is this possible? I want it to be effective in combat, and hopefully not with a huge list of spells/maneuvers to prepare every day.

Lets assume that all books are open, and that the lv. is between 7-10 w/ standard gold

Help??

Yes. In fact, it works great with touch attacks (bear in mind that sneak attack deals extra damage of the base type). Death attack + sneak debuff attacks work quite well.

[Starbuck_II]

can someone please guide my mind with a bizarre idea I thought of today while roaming through crystalkeep's spell list for d&d 3.5. I saw several spells that had interesting names and more interesting effects. I won't start naming names, but a few of the effects include touch attacks that either damage or drain stats, and things that granted cover and stealth bonuses.

What this brought to me was a simple idea: how could I make a character that acted like a shadow/spectre/wraith, being invisible and sucking away the enemy's stats before killing them. Is this possible? I want it to be effective in combat, and hopefully not with a huge list of spells/maneuvers to prepare every day.

Lets assume that all books are open, and that the lv. is between 7-10 w/ standard gold

Help??

Wizard with Shivering Touch, lesser? That deals 1d6 dex damage. (damage dropping a score to 0 paralyzes them if physical score or comatoses them if mental score)
3rd level, Shivering touch deals 3d6 dex damage.

Ray of Stupidity (2nd level) is a ray that deals Int damage.

[AzureDistress]

ok, lets assume I do take an arcane class (probably sorcerer). What could I do to get it to focus on stealth and illusion? Honestly if one of the incorperal undead templates wasn't so dang high in LA this problem could be entirely solved >.>

[Ashiel]

You could go for some cheap continual use magic items involving touch spells to make for effective touch weapons. I'd recommend gloves, personally. Simple low-level touch spells like ghouls touch, shocking grasp, or chill touch make good ones. If you're a crafter or have a crafting friend, you can get them to help you make some for even cheaper.

An example:

Withering Embrace
Market Price: 8,000gp. Create: 4,000 + 320 XP, CL 1. Requires: Craft Wonderous Item and chill touch.
Description: These gloves look like long black leather, and are studded with small bone-shaped metal braces along the fingers, leading into small claw-like tips along the fingers (these are only decorative, and deal no damage). The gloves feel cool to the touch, and always seem skin-tight when worn.
Effect: These gloves grant the continual benefit of a Chill Touch spell to the wearer. This grants the wearer a touch attack that deals 1d6 negative energy damage. Creatures so damaged must make a DC 11 fortitude save or suffer 1 point of strength damage. Against undead, these gloves deal no negative energy or strength damage, and instead force the undead to make a DC 11 will save or flee as if panicked for 1d4+1 rounds. Both gloves must be worn for their magic to work.
Creation Notes: Priced as continual use magic item, caster level 1st, with a duration measured in rounds (2000 * 1 * 1 * 4 gold pieces).

It's pretty pricey, but you're getting a negative energy touch attack, which allows you to deal out some nice sneak attack damage. It's harder to avoid too, since the negative energy bypasses damage reduction. It's finesse-able since it's a touch attack (another perk for a rogue), and it's standard damage is akin to a short sword (d6).

It's not certain ability score damage, but it's at least a 5% chance (since even if they have a +10 or higher fortitude save, a 1 always fails) to inflict 1 strength damage on each hit. It also helps a bit against some undead for the same reason (but it's a much, much less reliable form of attack).

Alternatively, shocking grasp would make for a great continual use weapon, for about the same price. It would deal 1d6 electricity damage (plus sneak attack) and you get a +2 hit bonus against people in metal armor (which are already the most vulnerable to your touch attacks).

A more high-end item might look more like this. Of course, they begin to get really expensive very quickly.

Heart Stealer
Market Price: 120,000gp. Create: 60,000gp + 4,800XP, CL 5th. Requires Craft Wondrous Item and vampiric touch.
Description: These blackened gloves bond to their wearer's flesh, extending tendrils deep into their hands and forearms when worn. Red veins seem to pulse and convulse across the surface of the gloves when worn. The gloves feel warm and slick to the touch.
Effect: These gloves grant the wearer the benefits of a continual vampiric touch spell. This grants the wearer a touch attack that deals 2d6 points of damage against any living creature. After each strike, the wearer gains temporary hit points equal to the damage dealt. These temporary hit points last for one hour. Temporary hit points gained from multiple touch attacks do not stack, using the highest value instead.
Creation Notes: Priced as a continual use item, 3rd level spell, 5th caster level, with a duration measured in rounds (2000 * 3 * 5 * 4 gold pieces).


This item would be pretty cool on a rogue. You get a touch attack that deals untyped damage that bypasses damage reductions, as well as temporary hit points. If you can catch a sneak attack (or a coup de grace) with it, you can have a ton of temporary hit points to play around with. The price tag is a huge drawback though, and it doesn't work against non-living creatures.

Sadly, neither ignore spell resistance, so that could be an issue at higher levels if you end up running into a lot of creatures that have it.
Just a few ideas.

[Keld Denar]

You could do Sorcerer, but I'd suggest Wizard over Sorcerer since you get more skill points for a high int, which benefits you being a wizard.

Wizard4/Spellthief1/UnseenSeer10/ArcaneTrickster5 is a pretty vanillia "Arcane Rogue" type build. Nab Master Spellthief (Complete Scoundrel) to offset the CL penalty. Now you can zap people with spells, ranged touch or touch, and steal spells from them on top of all the damage you do. Unseen Seer is in Complete Mage. Focus mostly on buffs like Invisibility to make yourself tough to locate and any damage spells that have an attack roll that you can Sneak Attack with. For your bonus divinations from USS, pick up Hunter's Eye from the Spell Compendium. It gives you +1d6 SA/3 CLs. That potentially a lot of extra damage, and is worth persisting eventially. Another good one is Divine Insight from Complete Divine. Gives you a huge bonus for when you really really need to make that skill check.

Check out Spell Compendium. Between there and the PHB, you should find enough spells like Gaseous Form and others to allow you to emulate incorporials. Most do have some pretty harsh limitations though.

Good spells to Sneak Attack with are any of the Lesser Orbs, Orbs, Vampiric Touch, and Wrack (although its evil, it auto adds SA, which is fun).

[golentan]

I'd recommend Ray of Enfeeblement as the base spell for your attack. It's specifically mentioned in the sneak attack rules (sneak attack bonus is negative energy damage) yields a higher strength reduction (great vs battle turtles) and is ranged, in exchange for 1d6 damage. And it can be cheaper than continuous use I believe, yes?

Other than that Ashiel's suggestions are great.

[Ashiel]

I'd recommend Ray of Enfeeblement as the base spell for your attack. It's specifically mentioned in the sneak attack rules (sneak attack bonus is negative energy damage) yields a higher strength reduction (great vs battle turtles) and is ranged, in exchange for 1d6 damage. And it can be cheaper than continuous use I believe, yes?

Other than that Ashiel's suggestions are great.

Thanks Golentan. ^_^

Ray of Enfeeblement actually crossed my mind, but I figured I'd go with touch based spells (rather than ranged touch) for some reason. I, however, wholly agree that ranged touch spells are probably much better for general rogue use, and are especially good for nailing a surprised foe without getting yourself into danger.

Oh yeah! Now I remember...I went with the melee touch attacks because the touch spells allow them to be active continuously, allowing for multiple touch attacks. At lower levels, that's not really very impressive unless you wanna deliver an odd touch spell along with your usual attack routine (say off hand touch attack or something), but as you get more attacks per round it would be much more attractive.

For example, if you're flanking (for sneak attack), and get three attacks per round (say 8th level rogue + haste spell), then you'd get three touch attacks for 1d6+3d6 negative energy damage, and a DC 11 save vs strength damage. Whereas you could pop 'em from a distance with a ray but it'd need a standard action to use (whereas the touch spells I mentioned work a bit differently, allowing multiple strikes like weapons).

So...if you're smart, I'd try to grab up some touch spell gloves or gauntlets or something quickly, as well as some good ranged touch spells like Golentan wisely suggested. A few great ones being ray of enfeeblement, scorching ray (this just hurts), and ray of fatigue/exhaustion (this is just mean). Also, carrying wands of ray of frost, acid splash and ray of fire are excellent (and cheap) spell trigger touch attacks to stack on some elemental sneak attacks from a distance. Also, a 5/day wand of any of those spells costs 375gp, so you can afford them at low levels too.

[Zaq]

If you're making touch attacks with spells and trying to drain stats, you basically need Poison Spell from Drow of the Underdark. It adds a vial of your choice of poison to the material components for a touch spell, then lets you basically treat the spell as a means of delivering the poison. Not as optimal as some things, sure, but thematically perfect.

Now you just need some decent poisons. See if you can find a middle ground between "I spent 1/10 of my WBL on this and my opponents still succeed on a 3" and "Vial of black lotus extract + barrel + minor creation = profit!" I haven't looked at the Black Dog (from Dragonmarked) in a while, but I recall that it had some tricks up its sleeve.

[AzureDistress]

I love all of your ideas ^^ thank you for assisting me in my master plan.

I'm thinking of going either rogue or spellthief/some Prc that continues sneak attack. I love the gloves idea, and am currently looking for a touch spell that could work well with this idea. Perhaps shivering touch?

What I really hoping for is to be able to do constant damage via touch attacks, and then use a high powered touch spell to do a fatality on said creature(s). Can anyone know of any spells that fit the bill? They don't have to be stat damagers, just something to be a signature finisher.

Everything else can be standard roguish attire and such, hopefully with a shadow/darkness theme.

[Krazddndfreek]

If no one's mentioned it yet, Overwhelm (PHB2) will end it before it starts. Puts them to 0 hp with the necessary amount of nonlethal damage; will negates. Its a 6th level spell though, so I'm not sure if you'll be able to use it with a rogue or spellthief.

[Ashiel]

I love all of your ideas ^^ thank you for assisting me in my master plan.

I'm thinking of going either rogue or spellthief/some Prc that continues sneak attack. I love the gloves idea, and am currently looking for a touch spell that could work well with this idea. Perhaps shivering touch?

What I really hoping for is to be able to do constant damage via touch attacks, and then use a high powered touch spell to do a fatality on said creature(s). Can anyone know of any spells that fit the bill? They don't have to be stat damagers, just something to be a signature finisher.

Everything else can be standard roguish attire and such, hopefully with a shadow/darkness theme.

I'd say have a look at the power-word spells. For high level play, you could get your wizard friend to add a 1/day spell-trigger power word kill to your glove. You should be able to pull it off easily with a DC 20 UMD at that level. It has no saving throw, so combined with some sort of eyeglasses of deathwatch, would make for a great instant-finisher. It would add about 22,950gp market value to your glove or weapon of choice for the power word kill 1/day. Basically, you'd eat it's HP alive until they dropped to 100hp or less, then Finish Him.

Alternatively, an even more fun trick would be using the basic chill-touch glove or ray of enfeeblement combined with the Fell Drain metamagic feat from Libris Mortis. It's a metamagic feat which inflicts a negative level on anything affected by the spell (the negative level lasts 1hr/CL). It would make for a very effective method for killing your opponents using combos like this...

A lot of spells and effects can insta-kill enemies who are X level or lower. Cloudkill, Circle of Death, and so forth. Many of them don't even allow saves if the creature's HD is too low (cloudkill for example). Negative levels reduce your effective level/HD, so if you tap an 11th level character with 3 negative levels, suddenly he's treated as a 9th level character (with a -3 save penalty to boot), and suddenly seems like a great target for Circle of Death, and similar spells.

So let's say you add the Fell Drain metamagic feat to the aformentioned chill-touch gloves, raising its level * caster level to 3 & 5 respectively, you'd be paying a lot more, but now it deals negative energy damage, has a DC 12 (+1 higher since the minimum ability score for the spell is now 13), and inflicts a negative level when you touch your opponent (inflicting -5hp, -1 hit, saves, skill checks, and they loose spells) each hit. Also, if you hit them as many times as they have levels, they will die outright.

Your party will love you if you have a weapon like this at your disposal. You'll soften up your enemies for spells (-1 to saves per touch), and your party's tank won't complain either (-1 to hit translates to easier tanking, grappling, etc), and you'll make an excellent mage-slayer (since each touch you'll be cutting down their spell slots). This also reeks of your undead touch theme, since lots of undead deal negative levels (wights, vampires, etc).

It's price would be the same as the vampiric touch item I mentioned before:


Withering Embrace, Greater
Market Price: 120,000gp. Create: 60,000gp + 4,800XP, CL 5th. Requires Craft Wondrous Item, Fell Drain, and chill touch.
Description: These gloves look like long black leather, and are studded with small bone-shaped metal braces along the fingers, leading into small claw-like tips along the fingers (these are only decorative, and deal no damage). The gloves feel cool to the touch, and always seem skin-tight when worn.
Effect: These gloves grant the continual benefit of a Chill Touch spell to the wearer. This grants the wearer a touch attack that deals 1d6 negative energy damage. Creatures so damaged must make a DC 11 fortitude save or suffer 1 point of strength damage. Against undead, these gloves deal no negative energy or strength damage, and instead force the undead to make a DC 11 will save or flee as if panicked for 1d4+1 rounds. Both gloves must be worn for their magic to work. Additionally, each time you deal damage with these gloves, the target gains one negative level which lasts for 5 hours.
Creation Notes: Priced as a continual use item, 3rd level spell, 5th caster level, with a duration measured in rounds (2000 * 3 * 5 * 4 gold pieces).


If you like these, let me know. Feedback is good. ^_^

[AzureDistress]

All I have to say is...I love it! If I can actually find a way to get these to work for me then I might cry tears of joy. Sadly however I doubt that I'll get these anytime soon: by the time I could get them (even with creating them) they would be too weak. Its sad :'(

[Eldariel]

Sorry that this is off-topic, but: On a totally unrelated note, is that black Mokona that's your avatar?

[Ashiel]

All I have to say is...I love it! If I can actually find a way to get these to work for me then I might cry tears of joy. Sadly however I doubt that I'll get these anytime soon: by the time I could get them (even with creating them) they would be too weak. Its sad :'(

Well there are several methods that you could use to get these earlier or cheaper. I'll try to keep it within the realm of "pretty good" rather than "omg borked" for my suggestions how to (since anyone can chain-summon efreeti):

The artisan feats in the Eberron campaign setting can reduce the cost to create the items by 25%.
There's a feat in one of the Forgotten Realms books which also reduces the cost to create items by 25%. This stacks with the previous feat (most likely reducing it by 25%, then reducing the new value by 25%). The DM will need to OK these feats however for your party's crafter.
At low levels you can set them as x/day spell-trigger effects with Craft Wand. To determine the number of charges, you divide the base cost of the item by 5 divided by the charges. This means a 5/day wand is the same price as a 50/ever wand. On a side note, this is also a preferred method of mine when dealing with artificers (as when playing an artificer, I like being efficient and not feel like I'm wasting something, and when DMing for them it prevents silly super-novas).
As with the above, being a rogue or a multiclass rogue/caster, you can manage these with either a DC 20 UMD check, or no check at all. Touch spells remain until you discharge them or cast another spell, so they can be comfortably held until the right moment.
In the case of chill touch or shocking grasp, having them set as a 5th caster level wand would net you 5 attacks per casting of the spell (since you get 1 touch attack per level with those spells), making a 5/day trigger glove plenty effective for the occasional full attacking rogue. Even better with Fell Drain, since it drains a level when the spell deals damage. It would cost 11,250gp market price (the same as a 3rd level wand) if you went this route.


On the other hand, while the caster level of the gloves I mentioned in my other posts are extremely low for the level you could comfortably get them at (and thus have difficulties bypassing spell resistance), they are still effective when not dealing with spell resistance. There are quite a number of strong enemies in the game even at higher levels who aren't immune to negative levels or don't have spell resistance to stop the items.

Of course, it's true that most outsiders at those levels would laugh at the measly +5 CL check against their spell resistance. It'd be something of niche weapon. Devastating where properly applied, but not for everything.

Now if we can find a low-level touch attack spell that doesn't allow spell resistance or a saving throw, then we're in business proper. I just can't think of any in core. There's several ranged touch spells that fit that bill though (the lesser orb spells in the complete arcane spring to mind).

[arguskos]

...and no one's actually suggested Spectral Hand as a way to do all this from 30 ft, through walls, or whatever? Uh... wow. I'm fairly certain as well that you can Death Attack/Sneak Attack with Spectral Hand, since you're delivering a touch attack.

Also, Spell Flower needs to be mentioned here, since the power to hold multiple touch spells at once is nice.

Oh, and for giggles: Harm. :smallamused:

[gorfnab]

Wraithstrike (SpC), turns your melee attacks into melee touch attacks, would be another spell to consider.

[Keld Denar]

Wraithstrike would be somewhat superflous in this case, as delivering spells via touch is already...well...a touch attack. Casting Wraithstrike before delivering a touch spell would have all of 0 extra effect. It would work out nicely if you had a spell storing weapon though, as you could attack with the weapon as a touch, and if you hit, you get weapon damage, spell damage, and sneak attack damage. Still, there are much better 2nd level spells out there for this type of guy, so spell slots would be pretty slim.

The best Rogue/Wizard type PrCs are Unseen Seer (CMage), Arcane Trickster, and Spellwarped Sniper (CScoundrel). Spellwarped Sniper is a neat class, but kinda requires some unusual reading since the main reason to use rays is to use the Split Ray metamagic feat on them, and its rather debatable whether or not you can prepare a spell with Split Ray even when its not a ray until you cast it.

A 1-2 level dip in Archmage can also be beneficial for the Arcane Reach talent. This lets you deliver touch spells at range, preferably while Greater Invised at that point, but then again, you could just use a normal ranged touch spell anyway.

[AzureDistress]

U love everyones ideas so much, I think I'm very close to being done with my idea and about ready to work on the build itself. I'm thinking about making it a Spellthief/Arcane trickster grabbing the withering embrace gloves as soon as possible, maybe making them gauntlets so I could add on Spellstoring, and upgrade to greater as soon as possible.

Also yes, my avatar is mokono

[Ashiel]

Also yes, my avatar is mokono

"Shall I pull on your ears to see how far they can stretch!?"
"Pupu-pu!"

Sorry, couldn't resist. lol

[AzureDistress]

:smallcool: that's right, back in the warm luminance of mokona!!!

[Thurbane]

Dread Necromancer is a class that gets lots of nice touch spells, and it's own innate, at will touch attack. If you could work it into some kind of stealth build (Unseen Seer/Imaskari Vengeance Taker), might be good for what the OP is looking for.

[Mojo_Rat]

Pretty sure Ray of Enfeeblement would not work with sneak attack as it isnt Damage.

[JerichoPenumbra]

Pretty sure Ray of Enfeeblement would not work with sneak attack as it isnt Damage.

It would work, the sneak attack damage would change into negative energy damage. You can check for yourself in CArc.

[Thurbane]

It wouldn't work, as Mojo_Rat pointed out, RoE does not inflict ability damage, it inflicts an ability penalty. A small but very significant difference. IIRC, Complete Arcane actually gives RoE as an example of a spell that Sneak Attack does not apply to.