drow fighter/rogue

[leegi0n]

I've got a character that is a fighter1/rogue6. (party level is 8/9)

It's time to level her up...

str: 17
dex: 23
con: 15
int: 16
wis: 16
cha: 20

fort: 7
ref: 11
will: 7

AC: 29

+2crossbow
+2 rapier of wounding
+2 keen scimitar

armor: +4 elven chain
amulet of nat armor: 2
gloves of dex: +2
ring of protection +2
boots of speed

Feats/abilities
weap. finesse: rapier
weap. finesse: scimitar
dodge
Quick Draw
Flick of the Wrist
trapfinding
evasion
uncanny dodge
sneak attack: 3d6

Here's my quandry: She seems a bit underpowered. Granted, we're playing with a DM that is notorious for bringing on uber-hard baddies, but I feel like she should do better in combat.

Is there anything I can do to beef it up? PrC? Feats?

[Flickerdart]

You have quite remarkable gear and ability scores, but it doesn't compensate for the fact that +2 LA hurts.

Note that in 3.5, Weapon Finesse applies to all weapons that it possibly can, but Scimitar is not a valid choice for it unless you get it...Feycraft, I believe. Either way, you get an extra feat out of that. Drow of the Underdark has many feats that help out your racial spell-like abilities, if you feel that your character could use more tricks.

Your problem is that you're not focusing on any one thing - you have two different weapons but no Two-Weapon Fighting, Flick of the Wrist but no light weapons, Quick Draw but no throwing weapons. What is it that you want to accomplish with this character?

[leegi0n]

You have quite remarkable gear and ability scores, but it doesn't compensate for the fact that +2 LA hurts.

Note that in 3.5, Weapon Finesse applies to all weapons that it possibly can, but Scimitar is not a valid choice for it unless you get it...Feycraft, I believe. Either way, you get an extra feat out of that. Drow of the Underdark has many feats that help out your racial spell-like abilities, if you feel that your character could use more tricks.

Your problem is that you're not focusing on any one thing - you have two different weapons but no Two-Weapon Fighting, Flick of the Wrist but no light weapons, Quick Draw but no throwing weapons. What is it that you want to accomplish with this character?

do quick draw and flick of the wrist not work together?


this leads me to my next point, and saving grace for this character:

We (the party) are all playing characters that we initially started, oh, about 10 years ago. Our challenge amongst ourselves was to unearth old characters and re-develop them. The DM has allowed us to completely retool them, if we want. I have tried this, but have been fumbly at best. I do have the ability to scratch her and start from new. I played her through two sessions as she is and she's not panning out (why I've come here). If you were to take a 8th level drow fighter/rogue and retool her with feats/weapons, what would you do?

[Flickerdart]

Flick of the Wrist requires a light weapon, any light weapon, to function. So yes, you could draw a dagger, throw it out and then stab them with your rapier or whatever, but you'd still need a dagger. It's not even really worth a feat since a skill trick does much the same thing.

There are a number of quite flavourful directions to go in for Drow Rogue/Fighter. They are very good with crossbows, and Fighter will help you with the many many feats needed to make this work. They can replace trapfinding with poison use when they take Rogue, and Drow sleep poison is one of the only poisons that are usable without breaking the bank (plus the Vermin Trainer feat lets you train vermin as animals, so you could train them to give you poisons which you could then distill). In fact, because you're 2HD and 2 Con down, you'll probably want to use ranged attacks anyway, and since you can pre-venom your bolts, you don't need to spend actions doing that in combat.

So you'd be looking at something like Fighter 4/Rogue 3/Exotic Weapon Master 1, with the following feats and ACFs (assuming two flaws):
1: DotU variant that gives up tower shields and heavy armour for +DEX vs flat-footed foes, Hand Crossbow Focus, Crossbow Sniper, Point Blank Shot, Rapid Reload
2: Dead Eye
3: Precise Shot
4: Weapon Specialization (hand crossbow)
5: Trade trapfinding for poison use (also DotU)
6: Vermin Trainer
8: Exotic TWF class feature
9 (next level): Ranged Weapon Mastery

Now you're adding 2.5 times your Dexterity (3.5 times if you're using a Fierce weapon from the Arms and Equipment Guide) against flat-footed opponents, in addition to SA damage, also poisoning them with poisons you can craft yourself for dirt cheap. Make sure to also enchant your weapon with the...there's a reloading enchantment somewhere that holds a magazine of something like 100 bolts. Then you're making four attacks per round (2 BAB, Rapid Shot, TWF, and the penalties are offset by Weapon Focus, Point Blank Shot and later Ranged Weapon Mastery) so all that delicious poison and sneak attack does all the more damage. Make sure to invest points in Use Magic Device for wands of all the great Ranger spells that help archery, or just take two levels of it. And take Craft (Bolts) because you're going to go through a lot of them.

[leegi0n]

Essentially a drow pistolero with crossbows....sounds pretty cool. Maybe trade out the ring of protection for a ring of invisibility to buff that SA even more...

[Malachei]

You could always go Swordsage. If you dip into it right now, your first level would be at Initiator level 4 (the second-level maneuvers are sweet), and your second level could give you Assassin's Stance for +2d6 SA.

[Tokuhara]

Personal Preference and 2s

Use the SA Fighter with a Dip in Swashbuckler (or vice-versa)

Switch to a Rapier and dagger, grab Hit & Run* (requires the loss of a feat, which was switched to Sneak Attack, so -1 to progression?) and grab levels in Corsair (Stormwrack), Invisible Blade, or any other SA/Swashbuckler-themed PrC.

[Darrin]

If you were to take a 8th level drow fighter/rogue and retool her with feats/weapons, what would you do?

Start with this Savage Progression (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a) Drow to get rid of the LA.

Rogue 3/Swashbuckler 3/Drow (Hit-and-Run) Fighter 2
Feats:
1) Travel Devotion
3) Craven
4) Weapon Finesse
6) Daring Outlaw
7) TWF
8) Combat Reflexes

Get Gloves of the Balanced Hand for Improved TWF (add +2/+4/+6 Dex bonus), Scout's Headband or Raptor's Mask (add +2/+4/+6 Int bonus), Bracers of Murder, and any swift-action move items you can get your hands on: Anklets of Translocation, Chronocharm of the Horizon Walker, Quicksilver Boots, Shadow Cloak. Wield pitspawned rapier + feycraft pitspawned rapier, two wand chambers, wands = instant of power, blades of fire, golem strike, grave strike, swift invisibility, swift haste, wings of cover, wraithstrike.

Finish off with Swashbuckler +12:
9) Staggering Strike
12) Double Hit
15) Robilar's Gambit
18) Improved/Greater TWF or Undo Resistance

[leegi0n]

Start with this Savage Progression (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a) Drow to get rid of the LA.

Rogue 3/Swashbuckler 3/Drow (Hit-and-Run) Fighter 2
Feats:
1) Travel Devotion
3) Craven
4) Weapon Finesse
6) Daring Outlaw
7) TWF
8) Combat Reflexes

Get Gloves of the Balanced Hand for Improved TWF (add +2/+4/+6 Dex bonus), Scout's Headband or Raptor's Mask (add +2/+4/+6 Int bonus), Bracers of Murder, and any swift-action move items you can get your hands on: Anklets of Translocation, Chronocharm of the Horizon Walker, Quicksilver Boots, Shadow Cloak. Wield pitspawned rapier + feycraft pitspawned rapier, two wand chambers, wands = instant of power, blades of fire, golem strike, grave strike, swift invisibility, swift haste, wings of cover, wraithstrike.

Finish off with Swashbuckler +12:
9) Staggering Strike
12) Double Hit
15) Robilar's Gambit
18) Improved/Greater TWF or Undo Resistance

I've never heard of those rapiers. What reference are they in? ...and the wand chambers? Is that part of these blades or a customization?

What would be the attack progression at level 8?

[Darrin]

I've never heard of those rapiers. What reference are they in? ...and the wand chambers? Is that part of these blades or a customization?


Pitspawned and Feycraft are in DMGII, they're templates that can be added to weapons or armor. Pitspawned weapons = +2 on rolls to confirm crits. Feycraft on a rapier allows it to be treated as a light weapon, but also drops the damage a step. Essentially it's a shortsword (1d6 damage) with the crit range of a rapier.

Wand Chambers are from Dungeonscape. 100 GP, and you can place a wand inside your weapon or shield. You can then activate it as if you were holding it. For TWF fighters, this gives them two wands they can activate as swift or immediate actions.

If you're trying to buff damage to keep up with the Power Attack/Shock Trooper/Leap Attack wombats, then blades of fire is a good swift-action damage buff for TWF (+1d8 fire damage for each weapon), and instant of power is an immediate action to add a +4 enhancement bonus to any ally's attack, save, or damage roll (great for crit multipliers).

Start with a couple +1 weapons, add the shock property (8000 GP) for +1d6 damage.

Add 2x Lesser Crystal of Acid Assault (3000 GP, Magic Item Compendium) for +1d6 acid damage, and maybe a special material like hizagkur (+1500 GP, Magic of Faerun p. 179) for +1 fire and +1 electricity damage or starmetal (+5000 GP, Complete Arcane) for +1d6 vs. outsiders/elementals/extraplanar.

Add a few Glyph Seals (1000 GP, Magic Item Compendium) to cast frost weapon, sonic weapon, and/or burning sword when they touch any creature that isn't you.



What would be the attack progression at level 8?

BAB +7, TWF + Gloves of the Balanced Hand (Imp. TWF):
+5 primary, +5 offhand, +0 primary, +0 offhand

Damage bonus vs. flat-footed = Str bonus (offhand 1/2), Int bonus, Dex bonus (Drow Hit-and-Run Fighter), +8 craven, +3d6 sneak attack, + spell/material damage, target has to save vs. staggered (DC = weapon damage) for each hit.

[Person_Man]

Your real optimization issue is that you're starting with two very weak classes, the Fighter and Rogue. In the future, if you're looking for a superior alternative with a similar play style and Skills, you may wish to look at the Swordsage, Psychic Rogue, Beguiler, Factotum, Advanced Player's Guide supplemented Pathfinder Rogue (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/coreClasses/rogue.html), or home brew fixes (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10326268). Also, most races and templates with level adjustment are not worth the trade off of lost character levels, including the drow).

Assuming that you're not going to allow yourself to die so that you can start over from scratch, I would suggest investing in some wands. Low level spells like Alter Self, Flame Blade, Cloud of Knives, Entice Gift, Glitterdust, etc, can have a huge impact on your power level.

You may also wish to buy a Ring of Blinking, which will dramatically improve your defense and your ability to qualify for Sneak Attack on every attack. If you're worried about your 20% miss chance, buy a Corsair's Eyepatch (3,000 gp Magic Item Compendium) which grants you Blind-Fight for 1 minute per day, 3 times per day, as a Swift Action. (And/or invest in the Mage Slayer feat, which requires Blind-Fight as a pre-req).

[leegi0n]

Start with this Savage Progression (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a) Drow to get rid of the LA.

Rogue 3/Swashbuckler 3/Drow (Hit-and-Run) Fighter 2
Feats:
1) Travel Devotion
3) Craven
4) Weapon Finesse
6) Daring Outlaw
7) TWF
8) Combat Reflexes

Get Gloves of the Balanced Hand for Improved TWF (add +2/+4/+6 Dex bonus), Scout's Headband or Raptor's Mask (add +2/+4/+6 Int bonus), Bracers of Murder, and any swift-action move items you can get your hands on: Anklets of Translocation, Chronocharm of the Horizon Walker, Quicksilver Boots, Shadow Cloak. Wield pitspawned rapier + feycraft pitspawned rapier, two wand chambers, wands = instant of power, blades of fire, golem strike, grave strike, swift invisibility, swift haste, wings of cover, wraithstrike.

Finish off with Swashbuckler +12:
9) Staggering Strike
12) Double Hit
15) Robilar's Gambit
18) Improved/Greater TWF or Undo Resistance


I'm tripping over my notes here...

STAT BLOCK:
str - 14
dex - 22
con - 16
int - 14
wis - 16
cha - 20

If I add another level of swash(CL9), with the feats/items above, what would the attack progression/bonus be? I will use boots of speed too.

Damage if each weapon has 1 wand socket? Can I TWF with a feycraft scimitar/rapier?

What is the attack progression?
+5 primary, +5 offhand, +5 primary, +0 offhand, +0 offhand +BAB?

damage total?