Rogue/Warblade ideas/ Help

[gdiddy]

Okay, I've recently been invited to a summer game to play an established 15th level character in a low magic campaign. WBL is halfed and magic users are homebrewed into NPC status, generally.

The character concept is an assassin. Like the assassin. If you absolutely need the high command of a foreign military taken care of, he's your man. He's on the payroll of about 10 kings internationally, so that he doesn't visit them. Stories about this guy abound that he wades into rooms full of people and comes out without a scratch on him. Also, he could be anybody and can talk his way into anywhere.


Any Spell-Likes, Spells, and (Su) must come from items, not class levels or feats.


My initial thought was rogue 8/warblade 7, Pumping Int and dumping Str and Cha.

My plan at this point is to use Skill Tricks, Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, Craven, Darkstalker, and a pumped Hide to pile on SA damage while Not Getting Hit. However, if there is a better way of doing this, I'm open to suggestions. Everything is open for change, including the class and overall strategy.

All books are allowed.

[Draz74]

Hmm. Swordsage definitely has more of an "assassin" vibe than Warblade (what with Hide and Move Silently being class skills, and all) ... but Warblade is very flexible, and we can try to stick with that if you want.

EDIT: Actually, if you can swing it without multiclass XP Penalties, I'd recommend both. There's no real point in more than 3 Rogue levels, so you could do something like Rogue 3/Warblade 3/Swordsage 9.

[Eldariel]

Warblade can work fine, given you have Able Learner. Their maneuvers are rather well suited, particularly Diamond Mind. So...yeah.

[Greenish]

Factotum 3 (with able learner)/Warblade 12.

You only need 1 level of factotum for able learner, but Brains over Brawn is pretty nifty. You could fit in barbarian dip for Pounce or (cloistered) cleric dip for general awesomeness to get your IL up.

[Edit]: Actually, screw skills. You don't get them enough anyway, and they can be done better with magic.

Spirit Lion Totem Barbarian (with whirling frenzy, though you probably won't be raging that much) 1/
cleric (or cloistered one) with magic and travel domains, latter swapped for the Devotion 1/
Warblade 13. (Not in this order, take barb and cleric together at some place depending on how it fits your maneuver progression.)

Cleric dip allows you to use any wands with cleric spells without UMD. Magic domain granted power allows you to use any wizard spells without UMD. Get a handful of wands and profit.

[Philistine]

The "cleric dip" idea appears to be ineligible. See above:

Any Spell-Likes, Spells, and (Su) must come from items, not class levels or feats.

[gdiddy]

Yeah, Cleric and Factotum are out. Are there enough Sword Sage Maneuvers that aren't Supernatural?

[Greenish]

The "cleric dip" idea appears to be ineligible. See above:Hmm, domain granted powers don't specify, so they default to Ex. Devotions are Su though. Meh, since cleric is not available it won't matter. Factotums might be disallowed too, since they're hogging spell-likes and Supernatural like they were going out of fashion.

Then it'd be feat rogue 1/spirit lion barb 1/warblade 13. No amount of hiding and TWF SAs is going to beat warblade when it comes to killing things.

Fit in basic charger chain (PA -> Imp. Bullrush -> Shocktrooper -> Leap Attack) and tripper chain (Combat Expertise -> Imp. Trip -> Knockdown) plus Combat Reflexes and maybe Stand Still to stop things from getting away. Stock up on maneuvers of your choosing. Sneak around as much as you wish.

Oh, almost forgot: Dark template, either buy off the LA or buy it as an item (Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis) gives you Hide bonuses and HiPS. Then you need concealment (or cover) to use it, but there should be something that'll help. Darkstalker is a must have.

[Edit]:
Yeah, Cleric and Factotum are out. Are there enough Sword Sage Maneuvers that aren't Supernatural?Diamond Mind, Tiger Claw and most of Setting Sun are Ex. Loses a bunch of the ones best fitting for assassin.

[Eldariel]

Hmm, domain granted powers don't specify, so they default to Ex. Devotions are Su though. Meh, since cleric is not available it won't matter. Factotums might be disallowed too, since they're hogging spell-likes and Supernatural like they were going out of fashion.

Then it'd be feat rogue 1/spirit lion barb 1/warblade 13. No amount of hiding and TWF SAs is going to beat warblade when it comes to killing things.

Fit in basic charger chain (PA -> Imp. Bullrush -> Shocktrooper -> Leap Attack) and tripper chain (Combat Expertise -> Imp. Trip -> Knockdown) plus Combat Reflexes and maybe Stand Still to stop things from getting away. Stock up on maneuvers of your choosing. Sneak around as much as you wish.

Oh, almost forgot: Dark template, either buy off the LA or buy it as an item (Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis) gives you Hide bonuses and HiPS. Then you need concealment (or cover) to use it, but there should be something that'll help. Darkstalker is a must have.

[Edit]:Diamond Mind, Tiger Claw and most of Setting Sun are Ex. Loses a bunch of the ones best fitting for assassin.

There's a few good Ex maneuvers in Desert Wind, and Ex Stances in Shadow Hand too; in our low-magic game, making a no-Su Rogue/Swordsage has been no problem thus far. There's a lot that fits for it by default, and some stuff that can be refluffed as necessary.