Iron Heart Assassin [3.5 ToB] Advice?

[Nanoblack]

As a preface, my goal isn't to be an expert munchkin and I don't want to cheese out this build. I'm more looking to potentially optimize a character to better fit with a concept.

The goal I have in mind is a character that has access to both Shadow Hand and Iron Heart Disciplines with a predilection for stealth and a ninja-esque mode of operations. I am currently sitting on a level 7 character that looks something like this: Swordsage-3 / Warblade- 2 / Bloodstorm Blade-2


I'm trying to cram as many attacks as possible to maximise the potential of punishing stance and eventually be able to shred things with Stormguard Warrior. Any race or feat order advice? I can imagine stormguard would be super useful at this level without a bunch of extra attacks. What weapon would suit this build? Speaking of weapons, what are some interesting enchantments that I could put on thrown weapons? I was thinking of a spell-storing and fleshgrinding weapon with silence stored to prevent raising an alarm.

Maneuver choice would also be helpful if available.

[FleshrakerAbuse]

An interesting build... Why Iron Heart? Not from a optimization angle, but the roleplaying of the warblade and the bloodstorm blade seems to be more of a straight-up fighter.
If you continue with the current build, I'd suggest getting a level of master thrower in there, and then using palm throw and maximizing dexterity. This, along with the feat Dead Eye, from Dragon, will help your damage skyrocket. Plus, this will help with your marksman-type sneak character. Get two-weapon fighting, along with wall of blades for those errors in assassination, and then hurling multiple daggers at the enemy while combining it with some boosts. Or, if you want to focus mainly on strikes, drop master thrower and do adaptive style, dead eye, and power attack. Pump dex and str, hitting them with some serious amounts of damage. At lower levels, use a maneuver like steely strike to do damage, or use Shadow Blade Technique to hit agile foes. Move on to things like cloak of deception to set up combos, along with full attacks to do lots of burst damage.

[Nanoblack]

Well the concept started off as wanting to make a Tome of Battle Assassin type character, but it eventually got to the point where everyone was making the save or dies, so I counter-intuitively decided to see what I could manage in the way of burst damage and utility. The way I see it is if I can get tons of attacks and find as many ways to boost each individual attack so that it racks up to one dead mother hubbard.

If there is a way to reliably "assassinate" people, as in dropping them to dead before they get an action, without doing crazy Uber-charger stuff or using magic I am totally open to it.

[Aegis013]

If there is a way to reliably "assassinate" people, as in dropping them to dead before they get an action, without doing crazy Uber-charger stuff or using magic I am totally open to it.

Depending on what you're up against, it's probably not going to happen. Especially with the "before they get an action" requisite.

If it's not using Magic as in, no magical or supernatural abilities, no magic items, only in-born Ex abilities, then it's definitely not going to happen.

[Nanoblack]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that magic items or supernatural abilities were out, just actual casting.

[Talionis]

Depending on what you're up against, it's probably not going to happen. Especially with the "before they get an action" requisite.

If it's not using Magic as in, no magical or supernatural abilities, no magic items, only in-born Ex abilities, then it's definitely not going to happen.

I think some of the Swordsage maneuvers are magical...

[FleshrakerAbuse]

He already said that magical is just not spellcasting, which means maneuvers = in.
I suggest a rogue/swordsage build. It works better than iron heart for burst.
Here's an idea: Use 5 levels of rogue to get that Sneak attack, multiclass into swordsage for the assassin's stance. Instead of +1d6 from punishing, you get +2d6.
Rogue 5/ Swordsage 1/Rogue more (or prestige into Avenger, aka non-evil Assassin). This will give you ALL the burst.
And assassin flavored abilities.

However, if you want to focus on tome of battle, I'd suggest going Ruby Knight Vindicator. It fits the theme and has good sneak/burst with its maneuvers. The levels in warblade and swordsage both aren't exactly good for your BAB growth and maneuver gain/action economy.

Another good burster for ToB is the setting sun ninja. It has good flavor and lots of utility, but also an extremely high amount of burst.

[Nanoblack]

May I ask you to elaborate where the burst is coming from? I just looked over Shadow Sun Ninja and I'm not really seeing where it adds much additional damage.

[Dayaz]

A weapon with haste would let you have an extra attack, and one level of Lion Totem barbarian gives you pounce. So you could charge in and hit a lot all at once, so with quickdraw and imp initiative you could potentiall kill someone on a charge.

I'm looking at it as a nod to the Ubercharger ideal, but it's not a true ubercharger build ^^

[FleshrakerAbuse]

May I ask you to elaborate where the burst is coming from? I just looked over Shadow Sun Ninja and I'm not really seeing where it adds much additional damage.

Whoops, I meant the additional sneaking abilities. Burst damage from assassin's stance and maneuvers.
On second thought, not shadow sun ninja. It doesn't seem to fit.

[RFLS]

A weapon with haste would let you have an extra attack, and one level of Lion Totem barbarian gives you pounce. So you could charge in and hit a lot all at once, so with quickdraw and imp initiative you could potentiall kill someone on a charge.

I'm looking at it as a nod to the Ubercharger ideal, but it's not a true ubercharger build ^^

SNEEAAAAAKKK AAAAATTTTTTTAAAAACCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!

Ahem.

We apologize for the fault in the reply. Those responsible have been sacked.

Anyway, I have a suggestion that requires a little houseruling, but you might like it.... Make a Swift Hunter build using a Ranger of the Sublime Way. I believe it has access to both maneuver disciplines you want, you end with 9th level maneuvers, and your burst will be insane against favored enemies. You could probably retain the 2-level dip into Bloodstorm Blade without hurting much.

[Shining Wrath]

If you want Bloodstorm Blade, then you want Iron Heart, as it enables many of the BB features.

However, I don't think you want Bloodstorm Blade for your "assassin". I think you want Swordsage Shadow Hand and Tiger Claw maneuvers that let you turn invisible, teleport, and attack in a frenzy with dual-wield.

Punishing Stance does synergize nicely with dual wield, but it's useful only so far. Check out Island of Blades or Assassin's Stance.

[Dusk Eclipse]

He already said that magical is just not spellcasting, which means maneuvers = in.
I suggest a rogue/swordsage build. It works better than iron heart for burst.
Here's an idea: Use 5 levels of rogue to get that Sneak attack, multiclass into swordsage for the assassin's stance. Instead of +1d6 from punishing, you get +2d6.
Rogue 5/ Swordsage 1/Rogue more (or prestige into Avenger, aka non-evil Assassin). This will give you ALL the burst.
And assassin flavored abilities.

However, if you want to focus on tome of battle, I'd suggest going Ruby Knight Vindicator. It fits the theme and has good sneak/burst with its maneuvers. The levels in warblade and swordsage both aren't exactly good for your BAB growth and maneuver gain/action economy.

Another good burster for ToB is the setting sun ninja. It has good flavor and lots of utility, but also an extremely high amount of burst.

Rogue 5/Swordsage 1 has an IL of 3 BTW and you need IL of 5 for Assasin's stance. You could go Rogue 6/Swordsage 2 to get it though.


SNEEAAAAAKKK AAAAATTTTTTTAAAAACCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!

Ahem.

We apologize for the fault in the reply. Those responsible have been sacked.

Anyway, I have a suggestion that requires a little houseruling, but you might like it.... Make a Swift Hunter build using a Ranger of the Sublime Way. I believe it has access to both maneuver disciplines you want, you end with 9th level maneuvers, and your burst will be insane against favored enemies. You could probably retain the 2-level dip into Bloodstorm Blade without hurting much.

+1 to this, sublime ranger does in fact get access to both Iron Heart and Shadow Hand (+Tiger claw which mesh extremely good with TWF), the problem is that it delays FE to... level 5 I believe, so the earliest you would get swift hunter would be at level 9.