Rogue/Warblade Advice

[metalith]

I am building a Lv 16 character which is going to be mostly Rogue and Warblade with a little fighter thrown in. I need help putting some finishing touches on the character. The premise of this rogue build is be able to do damage including sneak attacks without requiring a partner but benefits much better when he does. As well as a lot of crit syngery.

Race: Marrulurk (Sandstorm)

3 HD / 7 Rogue / 2 Fighter / 3 Warblade (+1LA)

Str 10
Dex 22
Con 18
Int 18
Wis 14
Cha 12

Racial Feat: Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Improved Critical (Light Mace), Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (Light Mace), Lightning Mace, White Raven Defense, Clarion Commander, Double Hit

Weapons: 2 - +1 Adaptive Cold Iron Feycraft Pitspawned Kukri

Stance: Blood in the Water

ACF: Disruptive Attack and Penetrating Strike

Problems:

This build has a lot of Dex and Int uses. Were I feel that Int and Dex are equal so I have no idea where to put the Attribute Level gains.

My AC is low and would like to find a way to buff up my AC so I'm not so squishy. I have been pondering a Nimble Mithral Breastplate but its already Dex capped. If anyone has a better armor suggestion that gives me the max armor AC without having to worry about Dex capping, I would appreciate it.

Suggestions for a increasing my base speed from 20 without being enhancement and permanently if possible.

[Snowbluff]

Races of Stone has the Gnomish Twist Cloth. +1 AC and no Max dex limit. If you are proficient you add the AC bonus to your Touch AC.

[metalith]

Okay with using the twist cloth, I can focus on Dex.

Any tips on a permanent speed increase that is not enhancement based?

[Fouredged Sword]

You have a d12 HD for most those levels. You may be able to get away with the quick trait. -1 HP per level, buy you are faster.

[metalith]

If I had a choice on that I would. The ST does traits and flaws randomly. You will always have a 1 trait, possibility of 2. And you can take flaws if you want, to get the extra feats. Only 1 possible redo if the trait or flaw does not fit the concept.

[Darrin]

Any tips on a permanent speed increase that is not enhancement based?

This post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15535646&postcount=34) lists some things to increase your speed. Mostly via soulmelds, though.

[Fax Celestis]

Too bad all your feats are eaten. Adaptive Flanker + Versatile Flanker and a reach weapon that threatens adjacent (like a spiked chain or a polearm with Short Haft) means you can flank Medium or smaller creatures with yourself.

[metalith]

I understand. It would be nice, but you also can't dual wield a spike chain. This build is about two-wielding and doing a lot of attacks or cycling into a lot of attacks, but good information and feats.

[metalith]

This post (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15535646&postcount=34) lists some things to increase your speed. Mostly via soulmelds, though.

Nice document. I can see about switching from Fighter to Psychic Fighter. Pick up Freedom Mantle for speed boost, keep the same bonus feets and a couple Pyschic powers.

[Firechanter]

Too bad all your feats are eaten. Adaptive Flanker + Versatile Flanker and a reach weapon that threatens adjacent (like a spiked chain or a polearm with Short Haft) means you can flank Medium or smaller creatures with yourself.

Just out of curiosity, what is this "Versatile Flanker" feat? Even Dndtools.eu doesn't have it listed.
And I don't know if that feat might somehow enable to "flank with yourself" using a Spiked Chain, but it certainly doesn't work with a Short Hafted polearm. Short Haft means you threaten _either_ 5' _or_ 10' and switching between these is a Free Action you can do on your turn.

@OP:
Are you playing with fractional progression? Otherwise, this character would have only +12 [swordsaged] BAB, which is a bit crummy for an ECL16 melee.

As for AC, a reverse-engineered Celestial Breastplate should do the trick. Just like Celestial Chainmail, but with 1 higher MaxDex.

Oh, and if you play with regular iterative attack penalties, you might consider dumping GWTF -- at -10 you're not going to hit a lot with it anyway.

[Darrin]

I understand. It would be nice, but you also can't dual wield a spike chain.

Cavestalker 4 (Drow of the Underdark) begs to differ.


Just out of curiosity, what is this "Versatile Flanker" feat?


I believe Fax is referring to Vexing Flanker / Adaptable Flanker from PHBII.

[Fax Celestis]

I believe Fax is referring to Vexing Flanker / Adaptable Flanker from PHBII.

I am. Whoops.

[Greenish]

I understand. It would be nice, but you also can't dual wield a spike chain. This build is about two-wielding and doing a lot of attacks or cycling into a lot of attacks, but good information and feats.Cavestalker aside, there are also kusari-kama (DMG) and whirling sword (SoS).

Why, my very own avatar wields two kusari-kamas. Since the rules say you can. :smallwink:

[Firechanter]

I believe Fax is referring to Vexing Flanker / Adaptable Flanker from PHBII.

Ah right, I almost suspected this. Okay, now that I read it, it indeed looks like you count as occupying _two_ squares with Adaptable Flanker -- that never occured to me before. Interesting!

[metalith]

I understand, 12 BAB isn't great. But I am working around it with a feats and skills to great creatures as flanked and some skills for flatfooted AC. With flanked and a very high dex score and finessing attacks, I should be able to hit. Which is where a rogue at 16th level would be normally.

Also with threatening to crit equaling auto-hitting more attacks equal more chances to hit. Maybe someone can do the math and show that its not as effective as something else. If there is math to prove it I will follow it.

[Fax Celestis]

Crit threats do not auto-hit. Only Nat 20 auto-hits.

[metalith]

We play with the rules of threatening to crit auto-hits. Then we use crit cards for if you confirm.

[Icewraith]

If at all possible, change or rearrange your feats so you can pick up stormguard warrior. You can forego attacks of opportunity to pick up significant to-hit and damage bonuses (+4 to both IIRC per AOO you forego) on the next round and turn low to-hit iterative attacks into nondamaging touch attacks that give you bonus damage (+5 to all your attack for each successful touch attack) in the following round. This is better if you switch to a kusari gama or figure out spiked chain dual wielding.

Considering you're using lightning mace with kukris, don't you need aptitude weapons? You can free up one feat by dropping improved crit and using Keen Aptitude kukris.

A level of exotic weapon master may let you flurry or dual-wield a spiked chain as well. The crit multiplier and range are unimpressive however.

With that stat allocation you need to figure out a way to pick up weapon finesse (unless Marrulurk gets it for free and I'm missing that in my google search results)-it's not listed in your feats.

You need those rogue ACFs to remain effective, but they really hurt your BAB. Consider Daring Outlaw, since Swashbuckler levels give you int as precision damage and the weapon finesse feat it's a 1-for 1 trade. You can also see if the DM will let Daring Outlaw advance the shield of blades Swash ACF instead of the Swashbuckler's standard luck bonus thing. If you stick to the core of the build - the 4 feat lightning mace chain, ITWF (not greater), Double Hit, and maybe Daring Outlaw you should be able to manage something like...

racial3/rogue X/ftr 1-2/warblade 1/swashbuckler ((10 or 9)-X)

at ECL 15 (See if your DM will go for level adjustment buyoff!) without running out of feats. Ideally you'd need exactly one and no more than five additional rogue levels to pick up the ACFS you need. Using fractional rules, any more than one or five rogue levels costs you an additional point of BAB. If you're stuck using the table then four rogue levels is your ideal breakpoint, since the first level will cost you no matter what.

9 stacking rogue and swashbuckler levels will get you +5d6 sneak attack, +2d6 stacking racial sneak attack, +int mod damage per swing, and you'll be using your 22 dex instead of your 10 strength on those to-hit rolls. You do need two +1 keen aptitude (everything else you want) kukris, but 16th level wealth is pretty solid.

Also get two items from MIC if possible. There's some fairly inexpensive gauntlets that let you treat your weapon attacks as magic (meh) and silver (woot), and a ring that lets you treat your weapon attacks as cold iron.

[metalith]

I would love it but the DM does not like Level Buy-Off. So no to buy off.

Adaptive was supposed to be Aptitude instead.

Was using Feycraft to get the kukri's to be Finesse Weapons, without the Weapon Finesse feat. Being Feycraft makes the weapons Cold Iron if I understood the Feycraft section of DMG II.

We don't use fractional rules.

I will want to try and rearrange the build since I want to also try and avoid dealing with any XP lost from multi-classing. With Swashbuckler I can remove Feycraft from the weapon list.

[Greenish]

Being Feycraft makes the weapons Cold Iron if I understood the Feycraft section of DMG II.You almost certainly misunderstood it. "Feycraft" means the item was (probably) crafted by the fey, and they hate Cold Iron.

[metalith]

Here is the section direct from DMG II. Here is where I take it to mean Cold Iron, unless you think it means that the Fey only prefer to use Cold Iron weapons but can still make other Feycraft items.

FEYCRAFT WEAPONS

For the most part, fey construct feycraft weapons only when they must battle others of their kind. Thus, such weapons are made from cold iron. This feature ensures that those who hunt demons and other creatures harmed by cold iron also find feycraft weapons quite desirable.

[Greenish]

Huh. Well then, I didn't think of that, but it does make sense. My bad.

[metalith]

No problem

[Nagukuk]

Gloves of the Balanced hand will allow you to free up another feat (I2WF)

[animewatcha]

Let's try this angle. What sources are allowed? I.E. third party, dragon mag, bribing the DM?

[metalith]

All WotC book, 3.5 and some 3.0 material, though if it was updated it must use 3.5, we can use all Dragon Magazine materials.

With builds we can't cherry-pick Prestige classes, ie if you take a prestige class you have to finish it to take another.

No 3rd party, no WotC website material, no Web-Enhancements.

[Darrin]

All WotC book, 3.5 and some 3.0 material, though if it was updated it must use 3.5, we can use all Dragon Magazine materials.
[...]
No 3rd party, no WotC website material, no Web-Enhancements.

Huh? This doesn't make sense... so you're ignoring errata? How exactly does Dragon Magazine outrank WotC website material as "official"?

[metalith]

Its the DM's ruling, not mine. We have to obey the ruling or stop playing. I would like it if we used all of WotC website material and the errata. We have some errata ruling we are using but it came up when the DM believed rampant abuse of RAW rules becomes an issue. *shrugs* It is the way it is.

[John Longarrow]

I am building a Lv 16 character which is going to be mostly Rogue and Warblade with a little fighter thrown in. I need help putting some finishing touches on the character. The premise of this rogue build is be able to do damage including sneak attacks without requiring a partner but benefits much better when he does. As well as a lot of crit syngery.

Race: Marrulurk (Sandstorm)

3 HD / 7 Rogue / 2 Fighter / 3 Warblade (+1LA)

Str 10
Dex 22
Con 18
Int 18
Wis 14
Cha 12

Racial Feat: Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Improved Critical (Light Mace), Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (Light Mace), Lightning Mace, White Raven Defense, Clarion Commander, Double Hit

Weapons: 2 - +1 Adaptive Cold Iron Feycraft Pitspawned Kukri

Stance: Blood in the Water

ACF: Disruptive Attack and Penetrating Strike

Problems:

This build has a lot of Dex and Int uses. Were I feel that Int and Dex are equal so I have no idea where to put the Attribute Level gains.

My AC is low and would like to find a way to buff up my AC so I'm not so squishy. I have been pondering a Nimble Mithral Breastplate but its already Dex capped. If anyone has a better armor suggestion that gives me the max armor AC without having to worry about Dex capping, I would appreciate it.

Suggestions for a increasing my base speed from 20 without being enhancement and permanently if possible.

metalith
Lightning Mace is a weapon style feat. If you have the feat, you get a bonus when using a pair of light maces. Similar to the other weapon style feats it doesn't apply to a weapon, just if specific criteria is met. It would apply to a kukri the same as spinning halberd or Weapon and Torch.

Lightning Mace applies if you are dual wielding light maces. If you threaten crit while dual wielding light maces, you get an extra attack. Likewise when wielding a one handed weapon and a torch you can sweep to do damage / dazzle with the touch.

Neither would apply to a kukri because the feats are only triggered if specific criteria is met. Being able to apply the extra attacks when threatening to a kukri would mean you could also apply the dazzle effect from weapon and torch when dual wielding kukri's. (or hitting with the shaft of a halberd when using the spinning halberd weapon style).

Your build can easily work with dual light maces, so its still a good build. I just want to make sure you double check with your DM to see if he would be OK with you applying the weapon style to kukri's.

[Greenish]

Lightning Mace is a weapon style feat. If you have the feat, you get a bonus when using a pair of light maces. Similar to the other weapon style feats it doesn't apply to a weapon, just if specific criteria is met. It would apply to a kukri the same as spinning halberd or Weapon and Torch.

<…>Aptitude weapon enhancement lets you use any of your weapon-specific feats with the enhanced weapon. The designers probably intended it for Weapon Focus and the like, but as written it works. It's pretty rank cheese by most standards, but then, each group has their own comfort level.

[Snowbluff]

Aptitude weapon enhancement lets you use any of your weapon-specific feats with the enhanced weapon. The designers probably intended it for Weapon Focus and the like, but as written it works. It's pretty rank cheese by most standards, but then, each group has their own comfort level.

I've had to ban it. My little brother started comboing it with Boomerang Daze. Yes, me, who hates banning things and is totally okay with early entry cheese. :smalltongue:

I ended up unbanning it and nerfing the DC on BD to a standard one.

[John Longarrow]

Aptitude weapon enhancement lets you use any of your weapon-specific feats with the enhanced weapon. The designers probably intended it for Weapon Focus and the like, but as written it works. It's pretty rank cheese by most standards, but then, each group has their own comfort level.

Greenish,
they are not weapon specific feats. They are feats triggered when a condition is met. Hence weapon and torch kicking off when using a light source in one hand. The feats don't apply to a specific weapon, just when a specific condition is met.

That's why lightning maces doesn't work with only one light mace.