Roguish Prince

[Shnigda]

Hey guys,
I was just wondering if you could help me with some optimisation for the next few levels as I am unsure what would be good choices for a melee-oriented rogue.

Some important points to note:

We get feats at odd levels (1,3,5,7....)
Items can be ordered from wizards where you pay 60% gold price and the xp cost of the item creation
I do not want to deviate far from the idea of being a rogue (no dipping into classes too far away such as Warlock, Psion etc)


My character is an Elf with 5 levels of Rogue and has STR:12 DEX:19 CON:12 INT:12 WIS:10 CHA:12. He also has the following feats: Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Finesse (took the murky eyes flaw as well), Combat Reflexes and Dodge (PF version). My character has a Mithralmist Chain Shirt, a +1 Rapier, a shortsword, a shortbow (probably going to be changed to longbow at some point), an Amulet of Tears and is looking to purchase a Shadow Cloak at the moment.
I was thinking of taking one level of Shadowdancer (hence the combat reflexes and dodge), but i have been told that i can get HIPS from other sources much more easily (collar of umbral metamorphosis for example).

My question is, what would the Playground suggest for my next feats and what would you suggest for any level dips to get better saves, BAB or prerequisites and whatnot that would increase my survivability?

All books are available and one feat can be changed at each level should I want to.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

[Karl Aegis]

What do you mean by "roguish"? Sounds like you just want to pump use magic device and use wands for everything.

[Shnigda]

By roguish I mean sneaking around, stabbing stuff in the back while hidden and making enemies flat footed (like a ninja assassin person without actually being a ninja assassin :P )
More of a movie rogue than UMD rogue (though UMD is of course useful...)
I don't really want the character to go down the route of fully committing to UMD/arcane/spells, I want him to be more of a TWF rogue (if that makes things clearer)

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Do you have any prestige classes in mind? Assassin or Psychic Assassin (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723d) could be reflavored as simply some type of special agent or spy, which would involve removing the alignment and special prerequisites as well as the death attack class feature. In the case of Psychic Assassin, you could dip a single level of Psion and spend your bonus psionic feat on Practiced Manifester. At the 5th level of that you can get Mind Cripple and deal 2 Int damage on every sneak attack. That can easily disable most opponents in a single full attack regardless of their HP, even if you're making nonlethal attacks.

If you want to use wands, a single level in a class with a spell list will allow you to use wands of any of that class's spells without making a UMD check, so a level in Assassin or Spellthief or Suel Arcanamach or Psion (for Dorjes, psionic wands) will enable you to use wands without risk of failure. Spellthief gets every abjuration, divination, enchantment, illusion, and transmutation from the Wizard list, so you could use wands of any of those spells, namely Wraithstrike. A Wand of Camouflage (SC, Ranger and Druid lists) adds +10 Hide for ten minutes, and a Dorje of Chameleon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/chameleon.htm) adds another +10 Hide for ten minutes that stacks since they're different types of bonuses.