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View Full Version : Dancey-Ribbony-Roguey build [3.5/PF]



onthetown
2010-11-12, 09:29 PM
After my last thread on using ribbons as weapons, I ended up intriguing my DM enough to let me build a character who uses them as her main weapon.

I decided to have the character be from Shou Lung, keeping in the flavour of the Chinese ribbon dance that inspired the question about using ribbons as weapons in the first place. I did some research into Chinese battle tactics and found Sun Tzu's Art of War to be a great resource, and I learned that he more or less taught stealth and manipulation. ("All war is based on deception," and whatnot.) So, I'll be playing a Rogue... or something similar, anyway. (I could have chosen Oriental Adventures classes, but I wanted to try to translate the character into the western classes.)

The backstory (this has already been approved by the DM) is that the character was the youngest daughter of an important politician in Shou Lung. She appeared to be a typical young woman who blended in with noble society and really didn't have much to inherit since she had older siblings, but her father was secretly employing her to go out and perform as a ribbon dancer under a different alias and appearance. She did plenty of normal shows, but when his enemies were attending she was so quick that she was able to kill them with the ribbons during the dance without being seen.

Unfortunately, suspicions were starting to arise (since, you know, people were dying) and some of his enemies were starting to figure out that she was his daughter, so she cut all ties, erased all records of her ever existing, and exiled herself to Faerun to protect her family. She joins the party, and at some point stops being such a Mary Sue as I learn how to play her better.

I'm obviously thinking Rogue with either Dervish or Shadow Dancer, but some people have told me to avoid Rogue with Dervish. I don't play non-magicky classes very often and I'm not great at builds to begin with, so I need some help with this. I'm going more for flavour than for power -- there are plenty of other powerful characters in the party, and I'm content to simply play my own character to her backstory than to try to overpower everybody else.

She needs Two-Weapon Fighting for the ribbon dance, and I think Whirlwind Attack would be cool, but that's pretty much as far as I get.

And why not Rogue/Dervish?

Quietus
2010-11-12, 09:51 PM
I think the problem with Rogue/Dervish is simply in the fact that it is very difficult to maintain flanking when you're moving around that much. And the.. I think four? feats that a Dervish has to have to qualify. Two are shared with Shadowdancer (Dodge, Mobility), but while Shadowdancer also needs Combat Reflexes, Dervish requires Combat Expertise and Weapon Focus. Getting all those feats means spending a lot of your very-valuable feats on crappy options.. and then denying yourself regular flanking.

If you're set on doing Dervish, then Scout might make a better entry. I don't have the mechanics on hand, but I think they get bonus feats, which would make this a little easier to handle, and their bonus damage when they've moved would actually synergize with the Dervish Dance.

Optimator
2010-11-13, 03:12 AM
Scout Dervishes can be very cool.

fireinakasha
2010-11-13, 03:24 AM
Depending on how lax your DM is, you might see about running with Lasher. Sure, it's a 3.0 PrC, and you'd have to argue for ribbons functioning similar to whips, but it's not that much of a stretch, and it would be a lot more useful for a rogue-ish character than Dervish.

That said, scout/dervish can be extremely effective, especially because scouts can choose dervish prerequisites as bonus feats. If you really want some rogue, don't forget the Swift Ambusher feat from Complete Scoundrel - rogue and scout levels stack.

true_shinken
2010-11-13, 06:16 AM
Rogue is actually a poor choice for a Shadowdancer, unless you use ACFs to trade away from Rogue all the stuff Shadowdancer you grant you.

Eldariel
2010-11-13, 09:52 AM
If you could run Tome of Battle, Swordsage would be pretty much exactly what you want in a nutshell. If not, Swift Hunter/Dervish is quite respectable, as is Rogue/Dervish if you can get Hide in Plain Sight and just hide while attacking (it's not easy but it can be done). That or get the "Island of Blades"-stance from Tome of Battle which allows you to flank somebody as long as any ally is anywhere adjacent to them.

Fishy
2010-11-13, 10:14 AM
Complete Scoundrel has the Cloaked Dancer PrC that does pretty much exactly what this character does. As a vaguely-bardic-music-like ability, you can do a little dance, render enemies dazed, fatigued or frightened, and then stab them with sneak attack.

Unfortunately, to dance and stab is a full-round-action that only gives you one attack, which is pretty terrible.

From the same book, Avenging Executioners get to treat shaken or frightened foes as flat-footed for the purpose of Sudden Strike. Using the Inspire Awe ACF, Bards can scare people by dancing- add in some Ninja and you might have something interesting...

Optimator
2010-11-13, 04:34 PM
Inspire Awe still has to be a type of performance that is heard.

Prime32
2010-11-13, 04:38 PM
If you could run Tome of Battle, Swordsage would be pretty much exactly what you want in a nutshell. If not, Swift Hunter/Dervish is quite respectable, as is Rogue/Dervish if you can get Hide in Plain Sight and just hide while attacking (it's not easy but it can be done). That or get the "Island of Blades"-stance from Tome of Battle which allows you to flank somebody as long as any ally is anywhere adjacent to them.If you go warblade you can pick up Iron Heart maneuvers for "whirlwind attacks". Maybe a multiclass?

Any homebrew disciplines that use Perform (Dance)?


IIRC there's an armour/shield(?) called gnome twist cloth which adds its AC bonus to your touch AC. Then there's Cloak Dance (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#cloakDance). Also Path of ShadowsRoE which grants you +2 Tumble and lets you make Perform (dance) checks instead of Concentration checks for spellcasting.

onthetown
2010-11-13, 05:00 PM
Looking over Cloaked Dancer, I very much like it and I think it's perfect.

If I didn't choose a spellcasting base class, what would the spells at each level be?

And now I need to figure out Bard or Rogue... Or another base class of similar type, if there is one. I'm more comfortable with Bards (they're the class that I pretty much automatically take at first for a new campaign or game), but my few experiences with PF Rogues shows them to be awesome.

Urpriest
2010-11-13, 05:05 PM
If I didn't choose a spellcasting base class, what would the spells at each level be?


They wouldn't. Prestige classes like that advance your spells if you already have spellcasting, they don't grant you casting if you don't have it already.

onthetown
2010-11-13, 05:12 PM
They wouldn't. Prestige classes like that advance your spells if you already have spellcasting, they don't grant you casting if you don't have it already.

Well, that settles that.

It makes me think that a Sorcerer (focused on illusions) gestalting or multiclassing with the Rogue or Bard might be interesting. Could fluff it up to enhance her performances. Something like a Rogue/Sorcerer/Cloaked Dancer, if that doesn't sound too horribly awful... Though I would gestalt the Rogue and Sorcerer, and then the Cloaked Dancer and Rogue, so I could still get my full spellcasting...

If I'm not making sense, please tell me. I'm god awful at this.

Urpriest
2010-11-13, 05:17 PM
Makes sense mostly, though it depends on the sort of power you're aiming for. Another option instead of Sorceror would be Beguiler: less versatile, and Int rather than Cha based, but lots of support for illusions, and it really fits the feel of your character. And of course Bard isn't too bad in its own right.

Remember that Cloaked Dancer only increases your spellcasting every other level. If you're in a gestalt game, you could gestalt sorceror levels with cloaked dancer when they lose out on spellcasting, and rogue when they gain spellcasting.

Prime32
2010-11-13, 05:26 PM
Here's a thought: Initiate of MililCoV lets your bard, cleric and paladin levels stack for the kinds of bardic music you can use. So a cleric with the right domains could be interesting.

Eurus
2010-11-13, 06:00 PM
Inspire Awe still has to be a type of performance that is heard.

Get tiny bells put on your ribbons? :smallbiggrin: