A Better Rogue?

[bluthunda]

Hey Playgrounders,
I'll start off by saying this game is slightly different where as the racial hit does are not counted towards level adjusent so at the moment my plan is to play a Succubs6Rogue4 the ethereal jaunt at will should work well with sneak attacks and avoiding damage. The game story is basically the DM made some charcters and we have to defeat them. They are probably gonna be pretty strong so I'm looking for a little help on what to do.
Obviously the game starts at level 10. ATM she had two weapon fighting, weapon focus short sword improved initiative and I need another feat. I was wondering if there is another class that would be better than rogue for that stealthy sneak attack backstabber with a level drain I want to play? Rules if i can point it out in a 3.5 book I can use it.
Other characters include a hound achron monk, illithid Psion and a Minotaur something I believe.
Stats are pretty exspecially after adding the Succubus stats. Any help appreciated. Thanks

[Waker]

How are your BAB and saves being treated if the RHD are ignored? Do you just have the same abilities as a 4th level rogue?
Consider dropping Weapon Focus. What you get in place of it is up to you. If you want to focus on level draining the target, you might want to get Improved Grapple so you don't provoke attacks of opportunity. Staggering Strike (CAdv) is useful, as it staggers the enemy whenever you hit them with a sneak attack. Force of Personality from the same book allows you to use your massive Charisma modifier in place of your Wisdom modifier on many Will saves.

Almost forgot, grab Penetrating Strike from Dungeonscape to deal half your sneak attack damage to targets immune to sneak attack.

[Vladislav]

Weapon Focus is horrible.

What you need is more ways to achieve sneak attack (Darkstalker?) and better damage output on said sneak attack (Craven?). Also, level 10 is a good place to dip a Swordsage level, as you gain Assassin's Stance for even more sneak attack damage, and bring-your-own-flanker, aka Distracting Ember.

[Treblain]

Succubus 6 and the right feats qualify you for Blackguard (www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/blackguard.htm)with little or no need for base classes, if I'm not forgetting something. Two levels get your huge CHA to saves, three gets you a -2 debuff on saves vs. your level drain and SLAs, and a few more get you some sneak attack dice.

The feat Craven from Champions of Ruin is a good way to up Sneak attack damage even without going full rogue, since it scales by character level, not rogue level.

[VGLordR2]

You can also take a two-level dip in UA Expert and a one-level dip in UA Warrior for a total of +9d6 to Sneak Attack.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Racial HD don't count toward ECL? That happens every now and then, and sometimes you just need to bring something to the table to educate the DM as to the folly of such an idea. Obligatory:

A Black Ethergaunt from the Fiend Folio has 17 HD of Aberration and a +3 LA. It casts spells as a Wizard 20, plus it gets tons of extremely powerful racial abilities. It should not be playable below ECL 20, but in this game you can add seven class levels to it and fight CR 10's. Recommend this to the guy who picked Illithid.

A Sand Giant from Monster Manual 3 has 15 HD of Giant and a +4 LA. It gets some fairly extreme physical ability score bonuses, and you can throw on six class levels for this game. Give it some Warblade and/or Crusader and/or Swordsage from Tome of Battle and those racial HD count half toward your initiator level for what maneuvers and stances you can learn. Recommend this to the guy who picked Minotaur.

Use the Lycanthrope (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/lycanthrope.htm) template from the Monster Manual, at the end of the entry you can find rules on creating one with different humanoid/animal combinations. Combine a Legendary Tiger (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/legendaryAnimal.htm), found in both the Epic Level Handbook and the Monster Manual 2 and updated here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20030718a) (the SRD link has the complete current stats), with pretty much anything you want but probably a Human. That gives you tons of BAB, skills, saves, HP, and feats* via the Legendary Tiger HD, plus huge boosts to your physical ability scores when in hybrid/animal form, for only the +3 LA. *The animal feats can be repicked for whatever you want via a Psychic Reformation (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/psychicReformation.htm) from an NPC manifester (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/goodsAndServices.htm#spell). Recommend this to the guy who picked Hound Archon.

For a character with Sneak Attack, use a Rakshasa, Naztharune from Monster Manual 3, which gets far better HD and lower LA than Succubus. Also note that a Succubus only level drains with a kiss or similar, not just a melee attack, so you would be either sneak attacking or level draining, but never both. I'd get four levels of Telflammar Shadowlord from Unapproachable East, and one Swordsage from Tome of Battle which should fall between the 3rd and 4th Shadowlord levels. Your Swordsage maneuvers known should include both Shadow Jaunt and Shadow Stride, both of which you can do in a single round to get two full attacks. Your future levels should be one more Swordsage, the last two Shadowlord, and everything else in more Swordsage. Be sure to get the feat Adaptive Style (ToB) so you can recover all of your maneuvers in a single round. Alternatively, start out Telflammar Shadowlord 3/ Swordsage 2, and just plan on finishing Shadowlord asap but you won't have Shadow Pounce starting out. Go TWF with the Xing Mongoose boosts, which contribute toward every full attack you make in a given round, and get a custom item that projects a (Heightened) Deeper Darkness effect so you can constantly Hide in Plain Sight to enable your Sneak Attacks.

[Treblain]

You can also take a two-level dip in UA Expert and a one-level dip in UA Warrior for a total of +9d6 to Sneak Attack.


If you use these generic classes, you shouldn't also use the standard character classes (or variants of those classes).

So sayeth the SRD.

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Another way to get multiple attacks to deal sneak attack if you're not sold on two-weapon fighting is to take advantage of natural attacks; succubi have claws and you're already a shapeshifter, so you can get a lot out of entering Warshaper.

[Randomguy]

If you use a weapon in one hand, you get 2 attacks from BAB and 1 claw attack from your free hand. If you use TWF, you get... 2 attacks from BAB and one extra attack from TWF. It's not worth it. (Assuming I got that right).


For loads of d6, take a level in 4 different classes that give +1d6 SA at first level. Probably rogue, spellthief, Sneak Attack Variant Fighter and then something else like Assassin or Ninja. See if you can pick up Assassin's stance via a feat. There's also a weapon enchant that adds another +1d6. In total, that's 7d6 Sneak Attack, which isn't too bad.

You'd probably get more mileage out of warshaper though: A level of warshaper + grow 8 octopus tentacles would mean a total of 11 attacks, which would be more damage in total, even with slightly less sneak attack ( +2d6 Assassin's stance +1d6 weapon +1d6 levels would be 44d6 on a full attack, compared to 21d6 without the one level of warshaper and with 4d6 SA from levels)

[Empedocles]

So sayeth the SRD.

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There aren't any real compatibility issues though...