How does one Arcane Trickster?

[Catarang]

Now, recently I've been thinking of building an Arcane trickster or something along that line. I'm not married to the idea of using the actual PrC, but i'd like my character to fit the same motif as one. I'm thinking Human, 4 levels of rogue for the sneak attack and skill requirements, 2 levels in fighter for bonus feats, and 5 levels in wizard, then Arcane Trickster all the way up. I'm not sure of the dip in fighter, or if I should use wizard and not sorc/bard/something else. Would someone explain to me what the best way to get this done would be?

[FrznTear]

someone wrote a short guide on these types of characters here
http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1240.0

and there was a similar thread about how to get into arcane trickster here
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=209374
it pretty much boiled down to doing rogue1/wizard4/unseenseer1 to qualify

[Fouredged Sword]

The first rule of optimization - Thou shal not loose spellcaster levels, and if you do, get something WORTH the cost out of it.

Strongheart Halfling
Martial (get a fighter feat in place of scribe scroll) Diviner (ban necromancy) Wizard 5 (trade the 5th level feat for spontaneous divination) / Spellthief 1 / Unseen seer 10 / Arcane Trickster 4

Master spellthief (feat) gets you casting in light armor and, for this build, CL=HD. This can be applied AFTER the penalty for casting non-divination spells for unseen seer, basically removing it. Add Hunter's eye as your cross class divination to allow you to throw fist fulls of D6 when you sneak attack with a nasty orb spell. You ALWAYS have the right divination for the task, no prep time needed.