[3.5] 14th level Rogue Swashbuckler - More Dex Pl0x?

[ZeroPresence]

Hey all,

My friends and I are running through a no-magic dungeon and are starting at 14th level. We're only allowed 110,000 GP as well. Figured I'd try a fun fighterish rogue. My friends love to make hardcore OPed characters so in order to blend in I found a nice build rogue swashbuckler build here (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Basic_Combat_Rogue_Guide_%283.5e_Optimized_Charact er_Build%29)

So the build is really Rogue 4/Swashbuckler 10. I'm a Whisper Gnome (no magic effects) so they get -2 Str +2 Dex +2 Con -2 Cha.

174 HP, FORT: 12, REF: 15, WILL: 6

My ability scores are (These include magical items and the racial pluses and minuses):
STR - 16
DEX - 22 (added +2 from leveling, and another from gloves of dex +2)
CON - 18
INT - 18 (added +1 from leveling - the reason is, as a Swashbuckler you add your INT mod to Dmg rolls. Wanted that 4 mod. - although maybe I'll cheat a little and add that +1 to dex and just pretend I got an another 18 ability roll :smallbiggrin: What do you think?)
WIS - 14
CHA - 11

According to the build I'm free to choose any optional feat that suits me. I really wanted to take Shadow Blade but you need a prereq for it, so I settled for Craven (1 dmg added per level to sneak attack) The rest of the feats I followed according to the build.

I was a little puzzled at first why I'd need 2h fighting, but then he mentioned the Sword of Subtlety (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Sword_of_Subtlety). Duel wielding with that while sneak attacking along with all the feats that increase my sneak attack damage plus magical items plus the feats is gross :smallamused:

For magical items I took the following:
- Spiddey Slippers (not the actual name but that's what I wrote down. Who wouldn't want to walk on the ceiling during combat?)
- Rogue's vest - +1d6 sneak attack
- Braces of Murder - +2 attk and dmg rolls - flat footed only, and reroll any nat 1 sneak attack
- Ring of Protection - +2 AC
- Amulet of Natural Armor - +2 AC
- Gloves of Dex - +2 Dex

I really want to add another +6 to the gloves of dex, but with the restriction of money it's a little tough. I could JUST say it was only... such and such GP and not what it really was. But I just wanted to know you guy's input. Right now I'm at 21 AC which is really kind crappy for 14th. But maybe I'm thinking too much like a fighter. I could remove one of the +2 to AC and add it to dex but I'd be getting hit almost always. Opinions?

Also its a little bit of debate between my friends and I. Are you allowed to wear a vest (in particular the Rogue's vest) underneath chain mail, or any sort of chest armor? It'd make sense in real life but in the DnD world... I'm not sure.

Thanks for reading and any suggestions and feedback is welcome.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that magical items are ALLOWED, however spell-casting, scrolls, and wands are forbidden.

[NecessaryWeevil]

You've already got magic items in there (and how would you spend 110K otherwise?) so can you elaborate on what "no magic" means? Does it just outlaw spellcasting? What about scrolls, wands etc.?

[ZeroPresence]

GAH my bad forgot to include that in there. Magic items are allowed, but no spell-casting. Wands and scrolls are not allowed as well. Sorry about that :smallsmile:

[Falcon X]

Check this out: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=215.0

It tells how you can boost each ability score.

[ZeroPresence]

Checked out the stuff under Dex, what is the Fey-craft Template? I can't find it anywhere with the stats and such.

[Loxagn]

Hmm. You might want to see if your DM will allow Tome of Battle.

Take Martial Study for Shadow Jaunt (Teleport 1/encounter!), Martial Stance for Assassin's Stance (+2d6 Sneak Attack!) and Shadow Blade (+Dex to damage!). Pretty solid selection, and adds a lot of utility.

Or just dip Swordsage for 1 level and get that, and a bag of chipstricks, too.

[ZeroPresence]

Hmm that combo of feats sounds incredible. What feats should I replace to get these?

Edit: Talked to my DM and he thinks the maneuvers are too "magic". Would you say they're magic? Because they're not really involved in any sort of magic.

[Rebel7284]

I can certainly see teleport maneuvers be considered magical even though according to the book they are Extraordinary abilities. Most of the other ones are pretty mundane sounding... up to your DM of course.

I hope your DM knows how to tweak monsters appropriately because D&D assumes access to magic especially at level 14.

Feycraft template is in the DMG2 as I recall.

[ZeroPresence]

Yeah I don't know... and it's his first dungeon so it's going to be a little interesting. Like I said before, other party members are making extremely overpowered characters. One of them has some gross number AC and the other auto crits so he's going to probably try increasing the stats of npcs which will screw the rest of us. I only have 21 armor class so if I get touched... there's going to be an extreme imbalance between group vs npcs, and players vs players. I tried explaining that to him but hey, there's only so much that can be said.

What's funny is he's allowing magical weapons and items which spell out the words magic, but not these two specific feats. Ranting a little bit here but just a little frustrating

[pilvento]

No prestige classes? Look for Scarlet Corsair or Invisible Blade (change requisites to weapon focus and two weapon fighting instead of point blank and far shot). Works wonders on this kind of builds.

And if you dont like the "feint" route, grab some feats that boost flanking and get the penetrating strike alternate class feature. That way you can Sneak attack creatures that are inmune for half dmg as long as you are flanking them.

In a mundane game tactical feats like Einhander and Combat Cloak experts can be really usefull as well.

[Loxagn]

If I were you, I would take out Weapon Finesse, and instead get Feycraft for your weapons. It's a 1000GP property that does the same thing, and Shadow Blade counts as Weapon Finesse for prereqs anyway.

Ask your DM if he'd be willing to roll the Improved/Greater/Perfect TWF into one feat. Seriously, it's really not that much of a buff, and TWFers need to bend over backwards to compete with THFers anyway. Keeping them feat-starved doesn't help that.

If your DM will allow you to dip Swordsage, I would switch two levels of Swashbuckler for two levels of Swordsage. This would give you your Wisdom modifier to AC, +1 to Initiative, and six Maneuvers (four readyable in combat) and two stances. I would advise taking Moment of Perfect Mind (Replaces a Will Save with a Concentration Check), Shadow Jaunt (Teleport 50' as a Standard Action), Mind Over Body (As Perfect Mind, but Fort Saves), Cloak of Deception (Gain Greater Invisibility until end of turn), Wolf Fang Strike (Attack with both weapons as a Standard Action), and Sudden Leap (Jump as Swift action). For Stances, take Island of Blades (easier flanking) and Assassin's Stance (2d6 Sneak Attack). Retrain Daring Outlaw to Adaptive Style so you can regain all your maneuvers and ready them on the fly. Take Shadow Blade* instead of Weapon Finesse. Keep Craven, it's great and the damage is multiplied on a crit.

If your DM will not let you take Shadow Jaunt (Teleporting is pretty magical), then perhaps consider Shadow Blade Technique, which renders an opponent flat-footed against a single attack.

*It's important to note that Shadow Blade's bonus only applies if you're wielding a Shadow Hand weapon and in a Shadow Hand Stance. These are the dagger, sai, Siangham, short sword, spiked chain, and unarmed strike. The stance requirement shouldn't be an issue. You also get Weapon Focus for free with Shadow Hand weapons, by virtue of the Discipline Focus class feature.

EDIT: Just saw the bit where he wouldn't let you. Well, there are (Ex) maneuvers all over.

[ZeroPresence]

Pilvento, are those homebrew PCs? That Invisible Blade sounds awesome but we aren't allowed Homebrew PCs either.

What are (Ex) maneuvers? Martial? I've only really heard of all these maneuvers from Tome of Battle because a friend tried it but I never read up on it until now. Just kind stinks cause he believes all maneuvers and stances are "basically" magic. I spoke to him about merging the 2h feats and he said he'll consider it... so hope and pray...

I'll take out weapon finesse and add the Feycraft. According to this website (http://www.imarvintpa.com/dndlive/items.php?ID=3133) it says "if light, treat as dex". Silly question but does that mean you'd add DMG from Dex instead of STR?

[Talya]

He's a swashbuckler. He gets weapon finesse for free.

[ZeroPresence]

You're right Talya. Sorry, I didn't catch that before. Was a long day yesterday :smallredface:

[pilvento]

Prestige Classes, from other books like the complete adventurer, complete warrior, complete scounder, or stormwrak. Just the same books were you got the swashbukler for example.

Invisible blade is in the complete adventurer I belive, lets you add INT to armor class, gives you SA damage, free feints and you can trade SAdice for bleeding wounds.

[Vogonjeltz]

Also its a little bit of debate between my friends and I. Are you allowed to wear a vest (in particular the Rogue's vest) underneath chain mail, or any sort of chest armor? It'd make sense in real life but in the DnD world... I'm not sure.

If I recall correctly there are two slots and a vest/shirt/vestment takes up one, armor/robes would take up the other. In the back of the Magic Item Compendium (MIC) there should be a diagram explaining the finer details. Standard limitations are one magic item per slot, although some magic items allow for additional slots or sharing of slots. Those will say specifically in their description that this is an option.

Did the DM explain their reasons for disallowing spellcasting?
In my experience games typically get slowed down from players/DMs having to look up spells, or flipping through spells to figure out what they actually want to cast only at the moment of their turn. Maneuvers suffer from the same problem, because the basic layout of maneuvers is identical to the layout of spells, it doesn't encourage quick decision making.

[ZeroPresence]

It'll be nice to show them that then. They've been playing a few months longer than I and when they told me you can only have one item occupy the chest area I was a little surprised. I'll take a look as I have a hard copy of that book in fact. That'll definitely not make me as paperish as I am now.

The DM just wanted to try a no spell casting dungeon, that includes no spell casting NPCs. It'll be fairly interesting because in the past we haven't really kept track of arrows, hunger, or preparing spells (although when one of them made a character that used maneuvers he had to keep track because of it's "overpoweredness"), and now suddenly we're gonna keep track of all of it.


I'll check tomorrow for Invisible Blade. Definitely I'll look into adapting it into my build. But what did you mean on your previous post by changing the prerequisites pilvento? I didn't think that was allowed haha :smallbiggrin:

I'm definitively going to add that +1 that I put to INT into DEX, and just keep the INT as an 18 anyway. They won't notice it. :smallwink:

[Andezzar]

What are (Ex) maneuvers? Martial? I've only really heard of all these maneuvers from Tome of Battle because a friend tried it but I never read up on it until now. Just kind stinks cause he believes all maneuvers and stances are "basically" magic. I spoke to him about merging the 2h feats and he said he'll consider it... so hope and pray...
Your DM is wrong. Maneuvers are Extraordinary Abilities unless the maneuver states that it is Supernatural. Strangely Shadow Jaunt/Stride/Blink are not among them. They are never spells.

So unless your DM wants to also ban all supernatural abilities (and then he should do that for the opposition as well), you should be allowed to have any maneuver. If he does ban all that I'm wondering why he does not ban magic items and why you are still playing D&D.

As for changing the prerequisites, that most definitely is not RAW, but in case of the invisible blade it would make a lot of sense. IB advances TWF but requires point blank shot?!

[pilvento]

As for changing the prerequisites, that most definitely is not RAW, but in case of the invisible blade it would make a lot of sense. IB advances TWF but requires point blank shot?!

I just named the feats that are prerequisites in never winter nights. :smallbiggrin: