Feint/Iaijutsu Optimization?

[Wings of Peace]

Hey peeps. I recently became aware of the Surprising Riposte feat from Drow of the Underdark. Long story short if you successfully Feint against a creature and then deal damage (by any means) to the creature then it becomes flat-footed for 1 round or until it's next turn (whichever comes first. The goal for this build is to creative an effective Iaijutsu character.

Improved Feint is a requisite for the feat so we can spend either Standard or Move actions on the feinting part. But what ways are there to gain the additional actions required to make this viable combat tactic? Ruby Knight Vindicator and Factotum both come to mind but that's the extent of what I can think of. I would prefer repeatable solutions. As far as things that work go:

-Iterative attacks (every hit after the 1st hit that deals damage)
-Damaging Spells (followed by an attack)
-Passive use Damage Auras (if there are any)

All that really matters is that before we go for Iaijutsu hits the enemy has to take at least 1 point of damage after we Feint.

Edit: Preferred weapon Gnome Quickrazor.

[Hirax]

A belt of battle (MIC) basically lets you feint as a swift action 3x a day. Once you get level 5 of invisible blade, you don't need the belt of battle for additional move actions, so you can either trade it out for a different belt, or use its actions in different ways. I might recommend a monk's belt for the wis+1 to AC if you can spring for a 4th stat (you'll already want dex, int, and cha), because with invisible blade's int to AC you might not be wearing armor.

Combine the sneak attack, thug, zhentarim, and exoticist fighter variants. Thug gets you bluff as a class skill, and more skill points. You won't be wearing heavy armor anyway. Zhentarim isn't relevant to the goal, but hey, free stuff. Human paragon gets you iaijutsu focus as a permanent class skill, and also eases your skill burden for prcs. Exoticist gets you proficiency with 4 exotic weapons. Whee, dumpster diving!

Human paragon1/variant fighterish thing3/human paragon+1/invisible blade5/assassin or avenger10

H: Combat expertise
1: Imp. feint
3: Two weapon fighting (grab gloves of the balanced hand instead of imp. TWF later)
HP: Weapon focus (quickrazor)
6: Surprising riposte
9: Craven or deadly precision
12: Darkstalker
15: Greater TWF, can't be taken at 12 due to assassin BAB loss, if the gloves are allowed to meet the pre req, else whichever you didn't take at 9
18: Perfect TWF, it has no BAB requirement, and if it's favorably read, it can allow for plenty of attack spam. This is still technically an epic feat, even if you do meet all the feat's pre reqs (which you should by now), you'll still need permission to take it because it's an epic feat, depending on your reading of the entry on acquiring epic feats in the ELH.

Darkstalker would be nice to fit in here somewhere, you'll have hide and move silently as class skills everywhere except on your fighter levels. Pair with a collar of umbral metamorphosis (ToM) for earlier hide in plain sight.

Serpent armor from the MIC grants combat reflexes, not a bad buy if it's of interest. But then you won't get int to AC from invisible blade.

As light weapons, if the feycraft weapon template from DMG 2 is applied to quickrazors, they're treated as if you had weapon finesse for them.

For invisible blade, it says you can use similar weapons to the dagger, kukri, and katar with DM permission. I'm assuming quickrazors obtain this permission. I'm also assuming the two ranged feats are dropped as pre reqs. WotC might not proofread their prestige classes, but we do. :smallbiggrin:

Rogue3 might be better than fighter, because of the Dungeonscape ACF that allows you to sneak attack things that are normally immune. Otherwise, the MIC has several things that allow you to sneak attack various normally immune things.

Assassins get the insightful feint spell, which has a swift action casting time, and gets you a +10 on your next check to feint.

As for boosting the bluff and iaijutsu checks, a circlet or persuasion or admiral's bicorne, along with anything that provides a morale bonus to skill checks, would help.

If you carry a katana with the focus enchantment (OA), you get +4 insight bonus to iaijutsu checks. Note that you don't need to be wielding it to get this bonus, it explicitly says it can be sheathed and you still get the bonus. Because it's an insight bonus, it stacks from any competence bonus items your DM might be crazy enough to give you. There might be specific spells in OA that grant bonuses, but I haven't looked.

edit: so many double posts lately. :smallfurious:

[Rhaegar14]

If you take 3-4 levels of Beguiler, along with Improved Feint, you can Feint as a swift action. Maybe you could take that and make it into some kind of gish build?

[Cog]

If you take 3-4 levels of Beguiler, along with Improved Feint, you can Feint as a swift action. Maybe you could take that and make it into some kind of gish build?
It takes 6 levels of Beguiler to get that ability (losing you 3 BAB), and there are hardly any gish-friendly spells other than Haste on the class's spell list.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Beguiler into Swiftblade (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070327) would be suitable, you'll get swift-action Feints plus an extra standard action per round later on, but you still need IF as a class skill. A dip in either Factotum or OA Samurai with Able Learner, or a single level of Human Paragon, would be suitable for this but further delays your spellcasting and thus your entry into Swiftblade. Just Factotum 8 could get the action economy for move-action feints with a full attack.

Keep in mind, Feinting itself does not make them flat-footed, so it cannot enable IF damage. With Surprising Reposte, you have three steps:
1. Feint, target is denied Dex against your next attack but not considered flat-footed.
2. Deal damage.
3. Target is Flat-Footed due to Surprising Reposte.
After that you can deal IF damage, but your initial damage to enable Surprising Reposte to kick in does not benefit from IF unless you have some other way of making them count as flat-footed. For that reason I'd strongly recommend a Beguiler/Swiftblade build. It gives you a swift-action feint, an extra standard action to deal damage in some way and make them flat-footed, and then a full attack with IF.

You could just skip the three-feat feinting combo, plus two feats to qualify for Swiftblade, and use a Wand of Grease and fall back on Hidden Blade and Flick of the Wrist when opponents have 5+ Balance ranks.

[Bloodgruve]

I'm running an IF Factotum currently that works very well. My main tactic is to raise my hide as high as I can, opponents are FF against you if you are successfully hidden, you can make iterative attacks and stay hidden at -20 hide. I'm using a Whisper Gnome Dark Creature templated to get Hide in Plain Sight, you still need concealment for this though. Veil of Shadows is good for concealment. I've added on Item Familiar feat to seriously boost the IF check. Currently at lvl 10 I consistently have 50ish Hide and 40ish IF. Usually giving me 6d6 x 4 attacks. I also took a level of Swordsage for Child of the Night stance to allow me to be in shadows for my Dark Creature's HiPS on a 10' move.

Whisper gnome gives you Quickrazors for free.


You can also use some other tricks to give Flat Footed such as,
Marbles ;)
Hidden Blade skill trick
Acrobatic Backstab skill trick
Sapphire Nightblade manuver (ToB)
Eggshell Grenades to blind/concealment
Grease
etc..

Beguiler 6 gives you feint as a move action, swift action if you have Imp Feint. So Human Paragon 1, Beguiler 6 would give you swift feint and IF. If you go MAD and can get Arcane Disciple feat with a domain that gives Divine Power you would gain some attacks and damage, throw in Versatile Spellcaster feat to use it multiple times a day.

Just some options.

GL
Blood~

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I'm running an IF Factotum currently that works very well. My main tactic is to raise my hide as high as I can, opponents are FF against you if you are successfully hidden, you can make iterative attacks and stay hidden at -20 hide. I'm using a Whisper Gnome Dark Creature templated to get Hide in Plain Sight, you still need concealment for this though. Veil of Shadows is good for concealment. I've added on Item Familiar feat to seriously boost the IF check. Currently at lvl 10 I consistently have 50ish Hide and 40ish IF. Usually giving me 6d6 x 4 attacks. I also took a level of Swordsage for Child of the Night stance to allow me to be in shadows for my Dark Creature's HiPS on a 10' move.

Whisper gnome gives you Quickrazors for free.


You can also use some other tricks to give Flat Footed such as,
Marbles ;)
Hidden Blade skill trick
Acrobatic Backstab skill trick
Sapphire Nightblade manuver (ToB)
Eggshell Grenades to blind/concealment
Grease
etc..

Beguiler 6 gives you feint as a move action, swift action if you have Imp Feint. So Human Paragon 1, Beguiler 6 would give you swift feint and IF. If you go MAD and can get Arcane Disciple feat with a domain that gives Divine Power you would gain some attacks and damage, throw in Versatile Spellcaster feat to use it multiple times a day.

Just some options.

GL
Blood~

1. Hiding doesn't cause them to be flat-footed, it just denies them their Dex bonus to AC against your attacks. This does not enable you to use Iaijutsu Focus.
2. Whisper Gnomes get no special proficiency with the Quickrazor, they only get familiarity with Hooked Hammers same as standard Gnomes.

[JadePhoenix]

Invisible Blade or Scarlet Corsair would hepl here.

[dextercorvia]

Hustle would let give you the move action to feint, so that you could still full attack.

[FMArthur]

1. Hiding doesn't cause them to be flat-footed, it just denies them their Dex bonus to AC against your attacks. This does not enable you to use Iaijutsu Focus.
2. Whisper Gnomes get no special proficiency with the Quickrazor, they only get familiarity with Hooked Hammers same as standard Gnomes.

Rules Compendium's entry in Hide actually says that if someone doesn't notice you while you Hide, they are flat-footed against you until after you attack or "perform some other attention-grabbing action". So if someone doesn't know where you are due to your use of the Hide skill, you can at least get them flat-footed against your first attack (probably after moving if you've attacked before) if you've got HiPS and a massive Hide check (or a good Hide check and some invisibility).
The rules for swapping out racial weapon familiarities for others (of the same race) are in Complete Warrior I believe, around where it lists its own new exotic weapons.

[Bloodgruve]

Rules Compendium's entry in Hide actually says that if someone doesn't notice you while you Hide, they are flat-footed against you until after you attack or "perform some other attention-grabbing action". So if someone doesn't know where you are due to your use of the Hide skill, you can at least get them flat-footed against your first attack (probably after moving if you've attacked before) if you've got HiPS and a massive Hide check (or a good Hide check and some invisibility).
The rules for swapping out racial weapon familiarities for others (of the same race) are in Complete Warrior I believe, around where it lists its own new exotic weapons.

TY FMA, I get that response whenever I post this build.


Blood~

[JadePhoenix]

TY FMA, I get that response every time I post this build. I have specifically seen the Hide>Flat Footed and the statement that you can sub racial weapons in and out printed in WoTC sources.

TYVM
Blood~
hm, I remember CW basically saying 'ask your DM if you can apply it to other weapons'.
I mean, they even include a feat to get racial weapon proficiency in case the DM says no.
I could be wrong, though.

Oh, btw, Einhander allows to feint as a free action 1/encounter using Sleight of Hand.

[FMArthur]

The 'ask your DM' is true, but it's also true of a lot of things most posters just take for granted as being allowed. ACFs, lots of variant features and races in UA, monster races, even prestige classes were treated this way very early on. And Weapon Familiarity trading isn't especially unbalanced or game-changing among those other alternate feature options.

Anyway, the Improved Weapon Familiarity feat gives you martial access to all of a race's exotic weapons. When you take the trade option instead, you don't keep your old ones or gain all of your race's weapons, just the one(s) you trade.