Stealth Warlock Challenge (3.5)

[AutumnLotus]

I have a distinct issue with my current group. They believe everytime I touch one of the Tier 1 classes I will destroy a game, and most of the time the Dm sets up the encounters just to screw with me. That isn't what I am asking you to help me with, however.

I have noticed that when I play lower tiers, they assume I am making a spoony bard-esque creature, and love to mock them for their uselessness. This is a dramatic extreme scale, but ultimately just light fun. What I AM asking is for this boards thoughts and suggestions for this idea I have been bouncing around, and any help would be great for when this inevitably is tested ingame.

The idea is a Half-Drow Warlock that plays with the feats from Drow of the Underdark, mainly the feats that use the 'charges' of Spell like Abilities that Drow have. Warlocks have invocations, that work as SLAs: specifically Darkness and the upgraded version. One of these feats lets a character hide in plain sight as a shadowdancer, and technically can be taken low level. What are your thoughts on this, and as a whole how useful and/or fun would this idea be in play?

[Juntao112]

Take the Darkstalker feat.

[Snowbluff]

Darkstalker and the ability to HiPS/see through your darkness are pretty much a must for stealthy 'Locks.

Not sure why you would be a Half-Drow unless you are allowed to enter Demonbinder. Demonbinder can be pretty sweet.

If you are allowed the old 3.0 Cosmopolitan feat, you can get Hide as a skill if you don't already have it.

[Osiris]

I heard in DotU, there is some feat that lets you cast Darkness as a swift action. or am I mistaken?

[Vaz]

Mindbender Dip at 6 for Telepathy and Mindsight? If you can find some way of getting Alter Self (Slime Lord, Thrall of Juiblex, etc), you can go into a Skulk and get immense bonuses (something stupid like +8 and +15 Hide and Move Silently (or the other way around)).

[Re'ozul]

Since you already mentioned playing with Dotu feats the following might be superfluous:

Blend into shadows - Since you always have darkness handy, thats not hard
Fade into Darkness - To supplement the above (though most likely not worth the feat slot)
Instinctive Darkness - fast lightswitch
Intensify Darkness - counts as higher level and is hilarious. (day/lvl duration is hilarious right?)

Darkstalker - as was suggested already
Collar of Umbral Metamporphosis - Because you really want to drive the darkness theme into the ground.
Shackles of Silence (MIC 6000gp) - a person shackled with these is under a constant silence effect that only extends to the very square it is in.

If you can get invisibility for non-combat (warlock lesser), then with the above you can only be found via detect magic or similar:
Reasoning:
Darkstalker - no blindsight/sense, scent or tremorsense, only spot and listen
Shackles - Listen pretty much fails aside from rare abilities
Invisibility + darkness abilities - spot pretty much fails as well

[Emperor Tippy]

The idea is a Half-Drow Warlock that plays with the feats from Drow of the Underdark, mainly the feats that use the 'charges' of Spell like Abilities that Drow have. Warlocks have invocations, that work as SLAs: specifically Darkness and the upgraded version. One of these feats lets a character hide in plain sight as a shadowdancer, and technically can be taken low level. What are your thoughts on this, and as a whole how useful and/or fun would this idea be in play?

Potentially quite fun.

Warlock 1/Factotum 8/ Mindbender 1/ Rogue 5/Swordsage 5 can be a very nasty scout/spy/assassin and fits with the Drow very well thematically.

Straight Warlock with the focus you are talking about could work but the only feats in DotU that are really remotely useful for you are Instinctive Darkness (Darkness as an immediate action) and Blend into Shadows. Fade into Darkness is somewhat useful but you aren't overflowing with feats in the first place.

But yes, Warlock 1 + Blend Into Shadow + At Home in the Deep can be a very nice dip on a stealth focused character. Or a nice start to a more Warlock heavy stealth build.