Character creation help for new player

[Thorhauge]

Hey all - first time poster,

I am completely new to D&D and will start up with a group of friends who also are completely new to the game. The DM is a good friend of mine and has a lot of experience DMing (and swears by 3.5E) and we are all looking forward to our first session.

To the problem at hand:
I have no idea about the dynamics of the game and the frameset that limits your choices. My original idea was to make an elderly human rogue who used a one-handed weapon and an unarmed off-hand (or 1h weapon) using touch spells to paralyze, chill and drain life from enemies in combat.
With my limited knowledge, I considered a sorcerer/rogue hybrid - but apparently sorcerers aren't great to multiclass. How about a duskblade/rogue combination?
I'd like for sneak attacking and stealth tactics to be added to the character - hence the rogue incorporation.
I have no idea whether this is realistic or not within the ruleset of the game. Any advice on skilling or even telling me the idea won't work will be greatly appreciated.


Thanks in advance

Thorhauge

[SilverLeaf167]

What books do you have available? Since you referenced non-core content (in case you didn't know, "core" includes the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual), I'll assume you have most of them until specified otherwise. Even if you don't, a lot of content can be accessed online, on sites such as D&D Tools (http://dndtools.eu/)

The easiest way to build this would be with the prestige class Unseen Seer from Complete Mage. It is effectively a Rogue/Spellcaster hybrid with a focus on Divination, though it can do other stuff as well. You can enter as a Rogue/Wizard or Rogue/Sorcerer, depending on personal preference, though Wizard has better ability synergy, easier access to a lot of skills and can learn Divination spells without having to sacrifice as much of his other spells. I'd recommend playing a Human, so you can take the feat Able Learner (Races of Destiny), which effectively removes all problems with using cross-class skills (as long as they're class skills for one of your classes).

With that feat, a high enough Intelligence score and one level of Rogue, you should have no trouble getting into the class. I'd recommend a build something like Rogue 1/Wizard 4/Unseen Seer 10/Wizard 5.

Hope I helped. Welcome to D&D and the Playground!

[Thorhauge]

Thank you for your input,

Our DM has tonnes of books but I, myself have only been browsing Player's Handbook I and II.
It makes sense to level towards a prestige class that is a combination of a rogue and a spellcaster. I am trying to keep the complexity of the character and optimization to a minimum since this is my first play ever - but I hope I can mentally contain multiclassing and prestige-classes. I've read that multiclassing wizard with fighers, rogues and the likes is generally a bad idea, so I have been wary of venturing in that direction.
I have been looking into the Unseen Seer you suggest and the incorporation of a rogue and a spellcaster in one class is, of course, intriguing. The recurring Damage Bonus ability is amazing, but I am a little worried that Divination Spell Power reduces the level of all of my non-divination spells since I was thinking to use necromantic spells like Vampiric Touch, Ghoul Touch and Chill touch for this combination of a rogue and a touch-based combat mage.

Thanks again

[Deca4531]

im not sure if what your trying to do will work quite right. using a touch attack spell is a standard action for one, so attacking with another weapon at the same time wouldn't work. also IIRC touch attacks without Improved Unarmed Strike will cause an attack of opportunity against you. now there is a meta magic feat that allows you to store a spell in a weapon to be unleashed when you hit with it, i forget the name though.

[Thorhauge]

Thanks for your input
I was hoping a Rogue/Duskblade combination might work since, a level 3 Duskblade gains the Arcane Channeling ability; from the Player's Handbook II:

"Beginning at 3rd level, you can use a standard action to cast
any touch spell you know and deliver the spell through your weapon with a melee attack. Casting a spell in this manner does not provoke attacks of opportunity. The spell must have a casting time of 1 standard action or less. If the melee attack is successful, the attack deals damage normally; then the effect of the spell is resolved."

Duskblades have an array of touch-based spells at their disposal throughout their levelling - so I was hoping that this, with a rogue at level 2 for Sneak Attack, Evasion and Trapfinding would result in an assassin with dual wielding and magic capabilities sprinkled in open combat.

[Namfuak]

Thanks for your input
I was hoping a Rogue/Duskblade combination might work since, a level 3 Duskblade gains the Arcane Channeling ability; from the Player's Handbook II:

"Beginning at 3rd level, you can use a standard action to cast
any touch spell you know and deliver the spell through your weapon with a melee attack. Casting a spell in this manner does not provoke attacks of opportunity. The spell must have a casting time of 1 standard action or less. If the melee attack is successful, the attack deals damage normally; then the effect of the spell is resolved."

Duskblades have an array of touch-based spells at their disposal throughout their levelling - so I was hoping that this, with a rogue at level 2 for Sneak Attack, Evasion and Trapfinding would result in an assassin with dual wielding and magic capabilities sprinkled in open combat.

The main problem you'll run into here is that while at level 5, that's a pretty good combination, depending on how much longer you plan to play, it's going to lose some luster as you gain iterative attacks (secondary, effectively, though if you are going to get high enough to use them ask your DM how they work). Since it sounds like you like the idea of channeling through a dagger, might I recommend Daggerspell Mage (Complete Adventurer). I happened to be playing with that prestige class for a character idea, it came out to this:

Rogue 2/Wizard 3/Unseen Seer 2/Daggerspell Mage 10/Arcane Trickster 3

(Arcane Trickster is on the SRD, d20srd.org, Unseen Seer is Complete Mage)

If you were interested in advancing your Sneak Attack faster, you could trade the second rogue level for a level in the sneak attack variant fighter (on the srd), but I think evasion is worth doing 3 less damage (also, some DMs might consider multiclassing like that cheesy).

[Thorhauge]

Thanks again for your help,

With my limited knowledge of the game, I was thinking that iterative attacks will not be a problem due to the expanded Arcane Channeling modification achieved at level 13:

"At 13th level, you can cast any touch spell you know as part of a full attack action, and the spell affects each target you hit in melee combat that round. Doing so discharges the spell at the end of the round, in the case of a touch spell that would otherwise last longer than 1 round."

As you assumed, I would indeed prefer to dual wield daggers or other 1h weapons. ^^ With a duskblade, I would have to wield a 2h weapon for optimization purposes up until level 13, so the daggerspell mage sounds interesting. It does seem like there is a greater focus on the arcane aspect than that of a Duskblade with a Rogue splash.
I just talked to my DM and he would originally have suggested Daggerspell Mage as well. You have definitely given me something to think about.

[Juntao112]

How old were you planning on making your rogue? (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/description.htm#age)

[gorfnab]

Here is a handbook that is about rogue / caster builds. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1240)

[koboldish]

It may not be the most efficient, but if you were a multiclass rogue/necromancer (wizard using the specialization rules for more necromancy spells at the cost of giving up two spells), and then you went into arcane trickster (a prestige class in the dungeon master's guide), you would have stealth and magic. That's just my opinion though.

[Phaederkiel]

May I point you towards

a) the beguiler

who has sorcerer-like casting (which means you cannot mess up your spell preparation) but with a fixed, and quite good, list (which means you cannot mess up your spell selection); and who still has a lot of skillpoints and many of the relevant skills as class skills.

and

b) the factotum (from dungeonscape)

which is better than the rogue and less destroyable by bad choices. Only feat you need is font of inspiration and knowledge devotion to be a competent fighter and a supreme skillmonkey. Has a little smattering of caster thrown in, and can do sneak attacks too.
Combines really good with the swordsage.

and

c) the swordsage (tome of Battle)

who is a kind of magical fighter with cool stealth skills. Is VERY difficult to really mess up. And has lot of options. Take adaptive style and be happy.

[Thorhauge]

Thanks for the overwhelming amount of input,

I had not given age much of a thought. I am guessing aging is nice for charisma buff (assuming sorcerer-like spell-casting) but annoying due to dexterity loss.
Thanks for the guide-link. It seems like a really helpful tool and helped narrow my choices towards arcane trickster and daggerspell mage.

The beguiler seems to decide whether to use spells or melee this round. Daggerspell Mages and Duskblades have integrated touch spells to their melee damage in one round - This sounds awesome.
The factotum and the swordsage sound really interesting - but I am worried that their stealth play doesn't look too strong.

At the moment, I am leading towards starting up as rogue to level 2 for a good amount of skill points, Evasion and Trapfinding, picking up Able Learner to keep up Rogue skills as I multiclass to gain an arcane caster of 5th level. Here I am thinking Duskblade. As this is accomplished I should be able to level through as a Daggerspell Mage.

[Phaederkiel]

Do whatever you like, that is the whole point.

but neither factotum nor swordsage have weak stealth skills by any means.

Do not forget that the factotum can add his int to his dex and str checks, including move silently and hide. And he can add his factotum lvl to the check once per day per check, which can make that crucial roll.

The swordsage has the important skills, and he has the very stealth oriented shadow hand school. At lvl 3 (or lvl 5, if you go anything 4 / swordsage 1) you get acces to cloak of deception and shadow jaunt, two abilities to put all other stealth types to shame. 6 seconds of invisiblity can allow to run quite far without beeing seen, and also allow to peak around corners without any danger, and the usefulness of 50ft teleport does not need any emebellishment.


alltogether, I would go factotum 4 / swordsage 1/ factotum 3 /swordsage 1 / factotum 1 / swordsage rest. 8 lvls of factotum give you one of the strongest abilities in the Game.

This is my tried and found true approach, and I have little knowledge of duskblades. Might be they are absolutely awesome. Factotum is :)

ps: factotum has trapfinding, that brought me to the class.

[Thorhauge]

You just made swordsage / factotum very interesting indeed!

I will definitely need to look in to this. Thanks for the advice!