Assassin without the Assassin PrC?

[gomipile]

How would you build a character with the feel of the Assassin's fluff, but with much more powerful crunch. In essence, what I'm looking for is an assassin who could do his job reasonably well in a mid-to-high-op campaign setting without getting squished like a bug for being what he is.

[Flickerdart]

The Assassin's fluff is "murder people before they see you coming" so a scry-and-die focused build is probably the strongest option here. Or do you mean to include the knifing and sneak attacking too? In that case, check out Unseen Seer.

[Silva Stormrage]

Shadow Hand focused Sword Sage also works. I believe there was a build called "Blinky" that was a really good hider based gnome. It used warlock to create and see through magical darkness. Can't seem to find it though.

[erikun]

Factotum immediately comes to mind; Iaijutsu Focus makes a perfect "kill them when they aren't looking" move, and you have plenty of skill points for Hide, Bluff, Disguise, Sense Motive, Craft: poisons, and similar skills. (I'm fairly sure that most assassins killed with poisons or simply blowing up the room, rather than literally stabbing people in the back.)

[gomipile]

The Assassin's fluff is "murder people before they see you coming" so a scry-and-die focused build is probably the strongest option here. Or do you mean to include the knifing and sneak attacking too? In that case, check out Unseen Seer.

Both, really. I want to see a bunch of ideas, Zinc Saucier style.

[Hirax]

Wizard5/incantatrix9/mindbender1/incantatrix+1/divine oracle3/olin gisir1

Take arcane disciple (luck) and (destiny) for a set of good persist candidates. 3 levels of divine oracle gives you the ability to roll twice on most divination spells. You can get an int mod of +15 at 20th level (venerable grey elf 23, +5 leveling, +8 enhancement from persist necro empowerment, +4 inherent), so between guaranteed success on contact other plane, and the ability to roll twice on it and augury, omen of peril, divination, etc. Grab an amulet of second chance for the ability to cast vision without exp 1/day, because the amulet explicitly says you retain knowledge from the round you erased. Are there any useful divination abilities I'm missing? You'd need to gestalt as a seer or erudite to get access to metafaculty and hypercognition to get any better at the scry part of scry and die, I think. As for the die part, well, you're a 20th level caster. :smallbiggrin:

[Averis Vol]

my best assassin was a infiltrator 7/beguiler 3/ unseen seer 5. good spell progression, great stealth and a healthy load of sneak attack die and pretty good BaB, unfortunately i never got to see him to then end as he died going to to toe with a pair of hezrou while the cleric at 1 hp tried to get the rest of the unconscious party to safety.

EDIT: my apologies, its been about 7 months since i played this character, it was beguiler not duskblade.

[gomipile]

Fair enough. I'd like the build to be something an assasin's Guild would actually train someone to be. That is, I'd like the character to be be useful to the guild as an assassin starting at low levels.

Ideally, the build should hit its stride at level 5 or so, but level 6-9 is more realistic, I suppose.

[Gavinfoxx]

Just straight Factotum, with focus on Iaijustu, poison use, and quickblades.

[Hirax]

This thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=234815) might have some things of interest.

[Averis Vol]

i dont see why it wouldn't work, i was acting as a spy at first level with disguise and gather information, isn't thta the first half of an assassination? i believe i found out about the mayor selling "missing citizens" to out of country slave traders and reported it to the church of heironeus, i think they hung him that week.

[erikun]

i dont see why it wouldn't work, i was acting as a spy at first level with disguise and gather information, isn't thta the first half of an assassination?
Espionage and assassination are two different things. Yes, a good assassin would want to be able to access and reconnaissance an area, but someone who can only do that isn't much of an assassin.

[Bloodgruve]

Factotum immediately comes to mind; Iaijutsu Focus makes a perfect "kill them when they aren't looking" move, and you have plenty of skill points for Hide, Bluff, Disguise, Sense Motive, Craft: poisons, and similar skills. (I'm fairly sure that most assassins killed with poisons or simply blowing up the room, rather than literally stabbing people in the back.)

With Facotum9/Swordsage1 I can do ~240 dmg on the opening round with touch attacks. You can 'assassinate' a 21 HD creature with that. IF Factotums are very fun.

GL
Blood~

[Averis Vol]

very true, but by level 5 i had 2d6 sneak, maxed ranks in hide move silently disguise and bluff to name a few skills, plus my bastard sword and several other hidden weapons. i had all the tricks of an assassin of that level would need, am i missing something?

[Particle_Man]

I was going to say Ranger with favoured enemy: human but I think core only is going to get outclassed in this thread. :smallwink: