Piggy Knowles
2019-03-04, 04:12 PM
Got a double showcase for you folks in store this week!
INTRODUCTION
With more than a decade and a half of toying around with 3.5, I’ve accumulated a lot of spare builds and ideas. While I don’t have an active game going right now, I still like to pop open my builds folder and try to refine things. Recently I decided to make a dedicated effort to flesh out some of these builds into full write-ups, and reached out to some friends in the CO community who might be interested in doing the same. In the spirit of Tempest Stormwind’s Weekly Optimization Showcase (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?), I thought I’d showcase the end results here.
The goal is (usually) not to show off any fancy new TO trick, but to showcase effective, playable builds and spur discussion. While each of us has a different build philosophy, in general the intent is to create something that can be played in most groups from level 1 to level 20. Again, the goal is discussion, so feel free to discuss the build, talk about other options, make suggestions or tear it all to shreds. Also, feel free to use anything showcased here in any of your campaigns—and let us know how they work out if you do!
Right now the group consists of myself, the Viscount, Akal Saris, Venger and WhamBamSam, with a couple of other folks hopefully on their way. Typically one of us writes up the build concept and possibly a stub, the others share feedback on Discord or in some of the shared documents we have, and together we refine things until we’re happy with the final product. I’ll list the build’s main author whenever I showcase a particular build.
Buffsader (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?559259-Optimzation-Showcase-in-the-Playground-Buffsader) (PK, ToB/Gish/Party Support)
The Utility Belt (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?560988-Optimzation-Showcase-in-the-Playground-The-Utility-Belt) (PK, Psionics/Stealth/Utility)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless War Mind (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?569004-Optimization-Showcase-in-the-Playground-Eternal-Sunshine-of-the-Spotless-War-Mind) (PK, ToB/Psionics/Melee Damage)
The Melding Pot (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?579458-Optimization-Showcase-in-the-Playground-The-Melding-Pot) (Veng, Incarnum/Utility)
That’s So Raven (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?581950-Optimization-Showcase-in-the-Playground-That%92s-So-Raven) (PK, Gish/Ranged/Debuff)
We’ve got another of mine: Dancing in the Dark, a double showcase featuring a pair of stealthy initiators!
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9PAQ_dATazM/TcqcQgI4B6I/AAAAAAAAAPg/lT3zMLwpkaw/s1600/ninja-cat-lolcats.jpg
Dancing in the Dark
This gun’s for hire / Even if we’re just dancing in the dark...
BACKGROUND
I love skill-focused builds, especially involving stealth. While not necessarily the most effective in combat, I just find them a ton of fun to play. But how can someone effectively use stealth in combat? There are a lot of barriers to effectively hiding in combat. Ranged attackers have the sniping option (though that’s also hard to optimize), but what about melee brutes? Is there a way to effectively make a melee build that focuses on stealth?
This is a concept I’ve played with a lot over the years, and one I return to every now and then. This time it came from a simple idea: what about using stealth alongside lockdown techniques? It turns the usual method of being a BFC lock-down fighter on its head: instead of forcing opponents to attack you, you make yourself difficult to locate or attack, and when they decide to move away in order to focus on your allies, you prevent them from doing so.
But what happens after you reveal yourself to make an attack of opportunity? When I started brainstorming for this build, I thought of a lot of interesting ways to generate off-turn movement as a way to re-hide. It was the Viscount who reminded me of Sidestep, a very nice feat that allows you to take a five foot step following an attack of opportunity. This was exactly what the build needed, giving it the ability to deliver an AoO and then step back into hiding. And while the pre-reqs for Sidestep are usually a bear, they also lined up perfectly with the requirements for shadowdancer, which in turn provides what is quite possibly the single best version of hide in plain sight in all of 3.5. (Seriously though, why are there so many versions of hide in plain sight?)
In the end I came up with two versions of this build, both centering on this basic trick. One is a relatively straightforward swordsage, while the other is a master of nine and involves a lot of moving parts and one moderately cheesy optimization trick. Rather than pick one or the other, I’ve decided to go ahead and showcase both for you today: the Heir of Shadow and the Sentinel of Nine!
THE BASICS
Race: Human. Not only are these builds incredibly feat hungry, but human is downright essential in order to qualify for the Siberys sentinel mark.
Build Stub: There are two versions of the build here. The first is a Swordsage 12/Monk 2/Crusader 2/Shadowdancer 1/Heir of Siberys 3, and the second is a Monk 2/Fighter 2/Warblade 5/Shadowdancer 1/Master of Nine 5/Heir of Siberys 2/Uncanny Trickster 3.
ACFs: Both builds use cobra strike monk with the decisive strike and invisible fist ACFs.
Alignment: Anything but true neutral.
BUILD ONE: THE HEIR OF SHADOW
Level
Class
Feats
Class Features
Maneuvers
Notes (Click to Expand)
1st
Swordsage 1
Darkstalker, Combat Reflexes
Quick to act +1, discipline focus (weapon focus)
Counter charge, distracting ember, moment of perfect mind, sapphire nightmare blade, shadow blade technique, stone bones, child of shadowS
Swordsage is going to be your main class here. It has almost everything you need to fit your fighting style: great skill points off an excellent list, a ton of maneuvers and stances and some solid class features. Darkstalker is pretty much required for any stealthy build, and I’m always a fan of taking it as early as possible. While the big bad enemies with blindsight don’t tend to bother themselves with level 1 characters, being able to sneak past things like guard dogs without worry is pretty clutch even at these levels.
Your maneuvers are going to focus primarily on setting sun, diamond mind and shadow hand. Setting sun and diamond mind provide the majority of the counters that will become your bread and butter, while diamond mind and shadow hand give you most of your strikes. Right now your goal is to stay mobile, stay hidden and make strikes of opportunity whenever possible.
2nd
Cobra strike monk 1
Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike
Unarmed strike, decisive strike, bonus feat
You’ve got some hefty feat requirements, so the lowly monk comes in to save the day. While there are other options for this slot (psychic warrior in particular is tempting thanks to access to the chameleon power), monk has some particularly nice bonuses. First, it allows you to keep your relevant skills (hide, move silently, sense motive and concentration) up. Second, it provides you with decisive strike, which is a very solid option on a build that focuses on counterattacks: make a single unarmed attack as a full-round action, and that and all other attacks you make until the next round will deal double damage.
Monk also provides you with an unarmed strike, so go ahead and grab a reach weapon and use that unarmed strike for adjacent foes. Alongside Combat Reflexes and your various ways of repositioning, you should be able to generate quite a few off-turn attacks if you threaten a large area.
3rd
Cobra strike monk 2
Mobility, Stand Still
Invisible fist, bonus feat
Evasion is nice and all, but invisible fist is simply too good to pass up, providing you with a regular source of immediate action invisibility. You also pick up Stand Still at this level. While Stand Still often gets overlooked for tripping as a method of locking down foes, it is one of the most consistent and reliable methods around. Unlike tripping, Stand Still effectively locks down large or high-Strength/Dexterity foes, and does not require the resource investment of the trip line (three feats, heavy Strength investment, items or abilities that can increase size, etc).
At this point, your primary method of attacking should already start to be clear. Attack, go invisible with invisible fist, position yourself appropriately, and when any foes attempt to move around you, lock them down with Stand Still.
4th
Swordsage 2
AC bonus
Baffling defense, step of the windS
Popping back to swordsage for second level maneuvers, baffling defense gives you a reliable way to evade attacks against most foes, as your skill check will typically outstrip the attack rolls of an appropriately-CR’d foe. Step of the wind is a situational stance, but when you’re facing difficult terrain, it’s a godsend. (Difficult terrain is actually quite nice for you if you have stance of the wind up; if your allies are able to create it, go to town.)
5th
Crusader 1
Furious counterstrike, steely resolve 5
Mountain hammer, crusader’s strike, douse the flames, charging minotaur, foehammer, iron guard’s glareS
Crusaders are the more traditional lockdown initiators thanks to their access to devoted spirit stances. Iron guard’s glare is the first of these, giving all enemies you threaten a penalty if they attempt to attack your allies. There’s nothing preventing this from remaining active even while you are invisible or hidden; your opponents are aware of its effects (and hence are aware you’re threatening them), but it still forces them into one of several bad choices: attempt to attack a hidden or invisible foe, attack your allies at a penalty, or try to move out of your threatened area (which in turn triggers an AoO and Stand Still).
Mountain hammer is well known for providing excellent utility in addition to providing solid melee damage. Taking multiple stone dragon maneuvers also helps ease qualification for things like bonesplitting strike and ancient mountain hammer down the road.
6th
Swordsage 3
Sidestep
Cloak of deception
Sidestep is an extremely fun feat from Miniature Handbook that gives you a free five foot step any time you make an attack of opportunity. This kind of off-turn repositioning is fantastic in and of itself, but you’ll get even more use out of it very soon. And with another second level maneuver, go ahead and pick up cloak of deception. While this won’t allow you to remain invisible after your turn ends, it’s still a handy tool to have for the turns when you’re waiting for your invisible fist ability to refresh.
7th
Swordsage 4
Discipline focus (insightful strike)
Insightful strike, stone bones -> shadow garrote
Insightful strike: the ability so nice, we get it twice! The maneuver is very nice here. Your concentration check is easy to boost and should provide good, consistent damage that continues to scale a bit even as you level. And with your first swap, go ahead and ditch stone bones, which was only useful in the very early levels, for shadow garrote. 5d6 damage on a ranged touch attack with the possibility to make someone flat-footed is a decent option for foes you can’t reach, especially since ranged attacks are hard to come by for most initiators.
Insightful strike the ability, on the other hand, is less nice… free damage never goes amiss, but you won’t be able to apply it to your reach weapon unless you shell out for spiked chain proficiency somewhere down the line.
8th
Shadowdancer 1
Hide in plain sight
After taking Sidestep, you more or less auto-qualify for shadowdancer, so take this dip and don’t look back. Shadowdancer has the absolute best version of hide in plain sight: you can hide while being observed and without need for any concealment, as long as you are within 10’ of a shadow. And with this lovely ability, your main attacking method is complete.
For those who don’t play a lot of stealthy characters, it’s always worth remembering that hiding is not an action in and of itself. Instead, if you meet the standards for making a hide check, you can make one as part of some other movement. So what does that mean for you, now that you can hide under almost any conditions? During your turn, you can use a maneuver or make a decisive strike, then use a move action or five foot step to hide in plain sight, positioning yourself so that you threaten as many foes as possible. When a foe provokes, you can make an attack of opportunity or lock them down with Stand Still. This, of course, will reveal your position… but then you get a free five foot step from Sidestep, allowing you to step back into hiding. It’s a nasty little one-two punch that should flummox quite a lot of foes.
9th
Crusader 2
Mage Slayer
Indomitable soul
Thicket of bladesS
Two very big lockdown abilities here. First, we jump back into crusader to pick up the ultimate lockdown stance, thicket of blades. This prevents foes from withdrawing or making five foot steps to avoid you, and combined with Stand Still, provides incredible battlefield control. Second, you pick up Mage Slayer, which prevents spellcasters you threaten from casting defensively.
10th
Swordsage 5
Quick to act +2
Bonesplitting strike, pearl of black doubtS
Now that you have thicket of blades, swordsage will mostly finish things out. Bonesplitting strike is guaranteed Constitution damage on a hit and is especially good against foes with lots of HD; thanks to your levels in crusader you know plenty of stone dragon maneuvers and have no issues qualifying. You also get another stance here. While it’s rare that you’ll want to give up thicket of blades, pearl of black doubt can be incredibly effective when fighting large groups, so it’s a good one to keep in your toolkit.
11th
Swordsage 6
Hand of death, shadow blade technique -> obscuring shadow veil
Shadow blade technique isn’t doing much for you, so go ahead and swap it out for obscuring shadow veil, which deals decent damage and potentially provides a nasty debuff for a round. Hand of death is pretty much a flat save-or-lose, and while the DC doesn’t scale, it’s still decent against enemies with low to moderate Fort saves.
12th
Swordsage 7
Heroic Spirit
Sense magic
Rapid counter
I’ve never really understood why swordsages get sense magic, but I can’t deny that it’s a handy ability. Heroic Spirit is useless if you aren’t playing with action points, but it’s a required feat. If you are playing with action points, three more every level certainly won’t go amiss. Anyhow, despite costing a useless feat to get in, heir of Siberys provides multiple bonus feats in return, so this is hardly a relevant feat tax.
Rapid counter may seem like an odd choice for a counter, since it’s pretty rare in my experience that Combat Reflexes on a Dex-heavy build doesn’t provide a sufficient number of attacks of opportunity, but it’ll get more useful in the very near future.
13th
Heir of Siberys 1
Pursue OR Action Surge
Additional action points, bonus feat
Heir of Siberys may seem like an odd choice, but it’s actually going to be the final piece in the puzzle that brings this build together. This first level won’t do much for you unless you’re playing with action points, but if you are, Pursue is a neat little feat that gives you free movement any time a foe you threaten makes a five foot step. Meanwhile, Action Surge allows you to spend two action points to take an extra move or standard action. The latter is clearly better, though it does burn through your action points faster, but Pursue is more on theme with the rest of the build. It’s up to you; it’s something you get for free but hardly the focus of the build.
14th
Heir of Siberys 2
Mark of Stars
Siberys mark
Ah, now this is more like it. At this level your Siberys mark fully forms, letting you use mind blank as a spell-like ability once a day. This is actually a level earlier than a wizard would get access to it. Mind blank is one of those absolutely essential buffs, just flat out negating a wide swath of negative effects, many of which could be completely devastating not just to you but to your whole party. That said, it has extra synergy for you. In addition to more or less negating the entire school of enchantment, mind blank also protects you from many divination spells that might otherwise reveal your location. With Darkstalker keeping you from being located by alternate senses and mind blank blocking most divination magic, you should now be incredibly difficult to pin down.
That’s not all you get at this level, though. Now that you have a Siberys mark, you qualify for one of the best feats in all of D&D 3.5: Mark of Stars. In addition to a flat bonus to AC and saves, this feat means you are never surprised and never flat-footed. Wizards will blow a 9th-level spell slot on foresight to avoid being surprised or flat-footed, but you don’t need to do anything so fiddly. This is especially relevant for you, since being flat-footed will prevent you from using your immediate action counters or taking AoOs.
15th
Heir of Siberys 3
Adaptive Style, Evasive Reflexes
Improved Siberys mark
Another use of mind blank each day is nice, I suppose, in case you get hit with a dispel. More notable here are your feats. Adaptive Style is nice for any swordsage, though I find it’s less essential than most claim; spending a full-round action, whether it’s to recover a single maneuver or swap out your maneuvers completely, is still going to be hard to justify in most combats, so unless combat runs particularly long, you’re often better off not spending the action. However, with your focus on off-turn attacks, it’s a bit less prohibitive.
Evasive Reflexes allows you to replace an attack of opportunity with a five foot step. This may seem redundant on a build that already has Sidestep, but Sidestep can only be used once per round, while Evasive Reflexes is only limited by your total number of AoOs. As was mentioned before, free off-turn movement is great for you and can give you another opportunity to hide. And thanks to rapid counter, you can even still make an attack before using Evasive Reflexes to step into hiding.
16th
Swordsage 8
Discipline focus (defensive stance)
Moment of alacrity, sapphire nightmare blade -> greater insightful strike
Back into swordsage for the last five levels. Sapphire nightmare blade probably hasn’t been readied in ages, so drop it for greater insightful strike: all the consistent damage of insightful strike, but you know, more so. You’ll also pick up moment of alacrity here, which allows you to spend a swift action to adjust your initiative. This actually works especially well alongside Adaptive Style, allowing you to spend a swift action to shuffle yourself to the front of the initiative cycle, then a full-round to adjust your maneuvers on the fly.
17th
Swordsage 9
Evasion
Shadow blink, shifting defenseS
Hey, 15 levels later, you finally pick up evasion to make up for the fact that you traded it away for invisible fist!
Shadow blink is one of those OMG maneuvers that you should almost always take if you qualify for it; swift action teleportation is just that good. And with your stance, go ahead and nab shifting defense. This actually gives some decent competition to thicket of blades; every time someone attacks you, you get a free five foot step (and a free chance to hide).
18th
Swordsage 10
Elusive Target
Quick to act +3
Ancient mountain hammer, distracting ember -> hydra slaying strike
Since you qualify for it, might as well take Elusive Target. Negating Power Attack is downright lifesaving, while diverting defense is just hilarious. As for your maneuvers, ancient mountain hammer is your high damage workhorse, doing excellent damage and bypassing damage reduction (very relevant at these levels!) or hardness. Hydra slaying strike won’t be useful every encounter, but when it works it really works. It’s a good one to keep in reserve and bring up when necessary via your moment of alacrity + Adaptive Style shuffle.
19th
Swordsage 11
One with shadow
Incorporeality lets you completely avoid a broad swath of effects, making one with shadow a phenomenal counter. Alongside your immunities from mind blank and Mark of Stars, this and diamond defense can allow you to avoid most attacks.
20th
Swordsage 12
Discipline focus (insightful strike)
Diamond defense, insightful strike -> quicksilver motion
Without Power Attack or Craven, the typical high-damage maneuver at this level (diamond nightmare blade) is largely going to be outclassed by ancient mountain hammer and greater insightful strike. Instead, go ahead and pick up diamond defense, which should allow you to more or less auto-succeed on any save, and trade the baby version of insightful strike for quicksilver motion, granting you even more swift action movement.
SWORDSAGE
1- Counter charge, distracting ember, moment of perfect mind, sapphire nightmare blade, shadow blade technique, stone bones, child of shadowS, step of the windS
2- Baffling defense, cloak of deception
3- Insightful strike, shadow garrote, pearl of black doubtS
4- Bonesplitting strike, hand of death, obscuring shadow veil
5- Rapid counter, shifting defenseS
6- Moment of alacrity, greater insightful strike
7- Shadow blink, ancient mountain hammer, hydra slaying strike, quicksilver motion
8- One with shadow, diamond defense
CRUSADER
1- Crusader’s strike, douse the flames, charging minotaur, iron guard’s glareS
2- Mountain hammer, foehammer
3- Thicket of bladesS
With a melee focus, Strength is obviously important. Dexterity covers your stealth skills and your total number of AoOs. You get some decent mileage out of Wisdom as well, between your AC bonus and the shadow hand maneuvers. As for the rest… well, you probably don’t want a negative intelligence, but you should have more than enough skill points even with a low Int. And Charisma can be dumped entirely.
SAMPLE STAT ARRAYS:
28-point buy: Str 16/Dex 14/Con 12/Int 10/Wis 14/Cha 8
32-point buy: Str 16/Dex 16/Con 12/Int 10/Wis 14/Cha 8
Hide and move silently are incredibly important to you for obvious reasons; keep them as high as possible at all times. Sense motive and concentration will also come in handy, as they drive key maneuvers. You’ll need a bit of perform (dance) to qualify for shadowdancer, but it’s hardly essential to the build. Your two monk levels should be enough to qualify there. I’d also highly recommend tumble, and like into skill tricks like Acrobatic Backstab as well.
You’ll build yourself out like a standard ToB sneak. Your fighting style is based around a reach weapon and an unarmed strike. You’re not a tripper, so you can pick pretty much any reach weapon that suits your style. You’ll want light armor that doesn’t impose an armor check penalty, preferably with the greater shadow and silent moves enhancements. If you have access to serpent armor fairly early on, you can save a feat on the build by taking Evasive Reflexes instead of Combat Reflexes (which will allow you to qualify for shadowdancer). And if it’s allowed, the 3.0 sparring dummy of the master is highly recommended for any build with monk levels, and is especially good for this build, which takes multiple five foot steps a round.
Other than that, boost Strength/Dex/Wisdom and focus on items that increase your main skills. Hide and move silently are obviously the most important, so consider things like the collar of umbral metamorphosis (you already have a better version of HiPS, but it’s still a sizable boost to hide). Meanwhile, concentration in particular is a great choice to boost sky-high, since greater insightful strike will be one of your most consistent damage options throughout the mid to high levels.
BUILD TWO: THE SENTINEL OF NINE
Level
Class
Feats
Class Features
Maneuvers/Spells
Notes (Click to Expand)
1st
Cobra strike monk 1
Improved Unarmed Strike, Dodge, Darkstalker, Improved Initiative
Unarmed strike, decisive strike, bonus feat
For this version of the build, you’ll open as a monk rather than a swordsage. Monk actually still has all the skills you’ll need to make this work, so this isn’t a bad trade-off. You’re fast and stealthy and hyper-mobile at this level, but you won’t deal a ton of damage. Don’t worry, we’ll give you some more useful things to do in combat shortly.
2nd
Cobra strike monk 2
Mobility
Bonus feat, invisible fist
As with the other build, invisible fist is an extremely useful addition to your stealth techniques, while Mobility assists with your, um, mobility, and helps you qualify for shadowdancer, Sidestep and Elusive Target.
3rd
Fighter 1
Martial Study (shadow blade technique), Stand Still
Bonus feat
Shadow blade technique
Fighter may seem like an odd choice here, but this version of the build needs to front-load even more feats than usual in order to make master of nine work. You could do a feat rogue instead, and if you’re starting at later levels that’s probably the better route, but at level 3 when BAB still matters, that little +1 can make a heck of a difference.
With your fighter feat, go ahead and grab Martial Study to pick up a shadow hand maneuver. Shadow blade technique is probably the most useful of these, allowing you to make more accurate attacks (and possible deal a little bit of extra damage). While you could take crusader’s strike here instead, which would free up a maneuver known at level 11, going with a shadow hand maneuver also adds Hide to your skill list for the rest of your career. As a stealth-focused character, that’s pretty hard to pass up.
Fighter also brings with it martial weapon proficiency, so you can now fight with a decent reach weapon (while still threatening adjacent enemies with your unarmed strike). Combined with Stand Still, you should be able to start locking down foes pretty effectively. You’re still an excellent sneak, and you can position yourself where you’d like, make an attack and disappear via invisible fist, and then force your enemies to remain where they are when they attempt to go and attack your allies instead.
4th
Fighter 2
Combat Reflexes
Bonus feat
As a character focused on AoOs, Combat Reflexes would be a must even if you didn’t need it for shadowdancer.
5th
Warblade 1
Battle clarity (Reflex saves), weapon aptitude
Moment of perfect mind, rabid wolf strike, mountain hammer, punishing stanceS
Warblade finally comes online, giving you a good range of offensive options. Moment of perfect mind is even more essential for this version of the build than the swordsage version, as you will likely have a lower Will save. You’ll be forced to spread around your maneuvers at this level in order to qualify for Mo9, but the delayed entry to warblade means you actually have some decent offensive options despite that. Rabid wolf strike and mountain hammer are both excellent ways to go on the offensive (in addition to the utility that mountain hammer provides), and punishing stance similarly increases your damage output (including making your AoOs deadlier). And by remaining hidden or invisible as much as possible, you should hopefully be able to mitigate some of the defensive vulnerabilities of punishing stance and rabid wolf strike.
6th
Warblade 2
Adaptive Style
Uncanny dodge
Douse the flames
Adaptive Style is less good for you than for a swordsage, but it’s required, and it’ll come in handy down the road. You need a white raven maneuver in order to qualify for Mo9, and douse the flames fits in best with your lockdown techniques.
7th
Warblade 3
Battle ardor (critical confirmation)
Iron heart surge
There are a lot of excellent level 3 maneuvers for a warblade, but I recommend the tried and true iron heart surge. You’re supposed to be locking the enemy down, not getting locked down yourself, so go ahead and surge your way out of every negative condition that might prevent you from doing your job.
8th
Warblade 4
Pearl of black doubtS
As mentioned in the swordsage version of this build, pearl of black doubt is just a fantastic option to have for when you fight large groups of enemies.
9th
Shadowdancer 1
Sidestep
Hide in plain sight
I’ll just go ahead and quote from the swordsage version of this build: “After taking Sidestep, you more or less auto-qualify for shadowdancer, so take this dip and don’t look back. Shadowdancer has the absolute best version of hide in plain sight: you can hide while being observed and without need for any concealment, as long as you are within 10’ of a shadow. And with this lovely ability, your main attacking method is complete.
For those who don’t play a lot of stealthy characters, it’s always worth remembering that hiding is not an action in and of itself. Instead, if you meet the standards for making a hide check, you can make one as part of some other movement. So what does that mean for you, now that you can hide under almost any conditions? During your turn, you can use a maneuver or make a decisive strike, then use a move action or five foot step to hide in plain sight, positioning yourself so that you threaten as many foes as possible. When a foe provokes, you can make an attack of opportunity or lock them down with Stand Still. This, of course, will reveal your position… but then you get a free five foot step from Sidestep, allowing you to step back into hiding. It’s a nasty little one-two punch that should flummox quite a lot of foes.”
10th
Warblade 5
Blind-Fight
Bonus feat
Lightning recovery
Imagine trying to lock someone down with Stand Still, only to miss—how embarrassing! Lightning recovery is like viagra for warblades: it ensures that you always perform when you need to. The bonus feat here is never a bad thing to have, and also gives you the last feat you need to qualify for master of nine.
11th
Master of Nine 1
Crusader’s strike, bounding assault
Well, it took a lot to get here, but trust me, it’s worth it. With entry into Mo9, you immediately start learning a ridiculous number of maneuvers from any discipline. Crusader’s strike is almost never going to be readied, but you’ll need a devoted spirit maneuver without pre-reqs in order to qualify for thicket of blades next level. Bounding assault is basically charging on steroids, allowing you to move to pretty much anywhere on the battlefield and attack.
12th
Master of Nine 2
Heroic Spirit
Dual stance
Rapid counter, thicket of bladesS
And here we go. Thanks to nabbing crusader’s strike last level, you now qualify for thicket of blades, and your lock-down strategy is more or less complete. Dual stance doesn’t do a ton for you yet, but trust me, it’s going to become one of the most useful tools in your toolbox eventually. Right now it means that for a couple of rounds per day, you can activate pearl of black doubt or punishing stance without giving up thicket of blades.
Rapid counter may seem like an odd choice for a counter, since it’s pretty rare in my experience that Combat Reflexes doesn’t provide a sufficient number of attacks of opportunity, but it’ll get more useful in the very near future.
13th
Heir of Siberys 1
Pursue OR Action Surge
Additional action points, bonus feat
Again, quoting from the above build: “Heir of Siberys may seem like an odd choice, but it’s actually going to be the final piece in the puzzle that brings this build together. This first level won’t do much for you unless you’re playing with action points, but if you are, Pursue is a neat little feat that gives you free movement any time a foe you threaten makes a five foot step. Meanwhile, Action Surge allows you to spend two action points to take an extra move or standard action. The latter is clearly better, though it does burn through your action points faster, but Pursue is more on theme with the rest of the build. It’s up to you; it’s something you get for free but hardly the focus of the build.”
14th
Heir of Siberys 2
Mark of Stars
Siberys mark
And once again, from the previous writeup: “Ah, now this is more like it. At this level your Siberys mark fully forms, letting you use mind blank as a spell-like ability once a day. This is actually a level earlier than a wizard would get access to it. Mind blank is one of those absolutely essential buffs, just flat out negating a wide swath of negative effects, many of which could be completely devastating not just to you but to your whole party. That said, it has extra synergy for you. In addition to more or less negating the entire school of enchantment, mind blank also protects you from many divination spells that might otherwise reveal your location. With Darkstalker keeping you from being located by alternate senses and mind blank blocking most divination magic, you should now be incredibly difficult to pin down.
That’s not all you get at this level, though. Now that you have a Siberys mark, you qualify for one of the best feats in all of D&D 3.5: Mark of Stars. In addition to a flat bonus to AC and saves, this feat means you are never surprised and never flat-footed. Wizards will blow a 9th-level spell slot on foresight to avoid being surprised or flat-footed, but you don’t need to do anything so fiddly. This is especially relevant for you, since being flat-footed will prevent you from using your immediate action counters or taking AoOs.”
15th
Master of Nine 3
Evasive Reflexes
Perfect form
Moment of alacrity, rallying strike
Back into Mo9. Evasive Reflexes combos with rapid counter to provide even more off-turn movement without sacrificing an attack of opportunity; among other things, this lets you pull off your Sidestep trick more than once a round. And moment of alacrity gives you the ability to shuffle initiative as a swift action. This actually works really nicely with Adaptive Style: activate moment of alacrity as a swift, spend a full round to reshuffle and regain all your maneuvers (tailoring your maneuver selection to the current encounter, ‘natch) and then go again as quickly as possible thanks to the fact that you were bumped to the head of the initiative.
Rallying strike is some solid in-combat healing for the whole party, though you’re really just taking it to make sure you qualify for strike of righteous vitality down the road.
16th
Uncanny Trickster 1
Bonus trick, favorite trick
You’ll want to delay your next level of Mo9 so that you can nab an 8th-level stance, so let’s pop into uncanny trickster. This is a fairly well-known way to bootstrap initiator levels: uncanny trickster is not an initiating class, so you add ½ its levels to your IL, but you can use it to advance an initiating class as well. In effect, you’ll get +3.5 IL in 3 levels. That’s going to be just enough to let you qualify for 9ths at level 20. Handy!
(As an aside, while this type of IL bootstrapping will let you qualify for 9ths, the build actually works just fine without it… so if this is just a bit too cheesy for your table, everything here still works. See the variants section for more details.)
You also get a favorite skill trick that you can use multiple times in an encounter. I’m a fan of Acrobatic Backstab in particular, but you’ll get a few, so pick what looks good to you. Extreme Leap, Twisted Charge, Walk the Walls, Shrouded Dance, Nimble Charge and Back on Your Feet are all useful options as well.
17th
Uncanny Trickster 2
Bonus trick, favorite trick, improved uncanny dodge
Bounding assault -> quicksilver motion
By advancing warblade, you’ll get a swap at this level. Bounding assault is nice but quicksilver motion is even better, so go ahead and swap this one out.
18th
Uncanny Trickster 3
Elusive Target
Bonus trick, favorite trick, tricky defense, battle cunning (damage)
Diamond defense
There are a lot of great 8th-level maneuvers you can pick up here, but you can never go wrong with diamond defense, which more or less guarantees that you succeed a saving throw as an immediate action. It’s not fancy but it’s literally life-saving. And hey, battle cunning is small potatoes at this point but is actually a pretty consistent damage boost, since your fighting style means a good number of your enemies will be flat-footed.
Elusive Target, as referenced in the other writeup, is a fantastic defensive feat, though this build might want to consider replacing it with Mage Slayer.
19th
Master of Nine 4
Counter stance
Greater divine surge, stance of alacrityS
We’ll close things out with master of nine. Two things come online here that will work together to make a dramatic difference. The first is counter stance, which allows you to switch stances any time you use a counter. The second is stance of alacrity, which allows you to initiate a counter without taking up your immediate action. This is huge: you have a lot of uses for your swift and immediate action, and this essentially gives you two of them a round. And you can even use this to switch in stance of alacrity when you’re in another stance: use a counter and then activate counter stance to pull up stance of alacrity, and you’ll be able to use another counter that same round. And thanks to dual stance, you can even keep up both stance of alacrity and thicket of blades for several rounds a day.
Greater divine surge is a nuke with some serious drawbacks. Luckily, you have a lot of good ways of avoiding attacks by hiding or turning invisible, so enjoy the ridiculous damage you’ll be dealing.
20th
Master of Nine 5
Mastery of nine
Mountain tombstone strike, strike of righteous vitality
You’ll end with a final level of master of nine, giving you two maneuvers at IL 17. There are a lot of excellent options here. While time stands still is the usual stand-out (and one that you qualify for), you’re not particularly interested in full attacks, so instead go ahead and pick up mountain tombstone strike. 2d6 Con damage with no save is absolutely devastating, and outstrips strike of perfect clarity in damage against high-hit dice opponents (and against some opponents, can kill them outright). When it’s time to just make someone suffer, that’s your go-to choice. And since you have a really reliable high-damage maneuver, go ahead and pick up strike of righteous vitality. This is arguably the best healing in the game, and it also restores your lost Con, meaning you can smack someone with greater divine surge, move into hiding, and then use strike of righteous vitality to heal yourself back up to full.
1- Shadow blade technique, moment of perfect mind, douse the flames, crusader’s strike, punishing stanceS
2- Rabid wolf strike, mountain hammer
3- Iron heart surge, pearl of black doubtS, thicket of bladesS
4- Lightning recovery, bounding assault
5- Rapid counter
6- Moment of alacrity, rallying strike
7- Quicksilver motion
8- Diamond defense, greater divine surge, stance of alacrityS
9- Mountain tombstone strike, strike of righteous vitality
Stats are actually a bit easier to manage for the Sentinel of Nine than they are for the Heir of Shadow. Like the other build, Strength and Dexterity will be very important, but unlike that build, Wisdom doesn’t really play a role. You’ll have moment of perfect mind, iron heart surge and diamond defense for Will saves (not to mention mind blank), so you can safely leave it at 10. A decent Intelligence wouldn’t go amiss, both because it helps keep your skills up and because it powers some of your warblade abilities, but it’s not essential. I’d start with a 14 but not worry about keeping it any higher than that.
SAMPLE STAT ARRAYS:
28-point buy: Str 16/Dex 14/Con 12/Int 14/Wis 10/Cha 8
32-point buy: Str 16/Dex 16/Con 12/Int 14/Wis 10/Cha 8
Like the other version of the build, hide and move silently are far and away the most important options for you. Though you’ll have fewer base skill points, you should make up the difference with a higher Intelligence, making it a wash overall. You’ll have hide as a class skill all game, though move silently will be cross-class for several levels; keep it as high as you can afford, and maybe consider investing in an item of silence. You’ll also want concentration high, though no baffling defense means you don’t need sense motive. That said, you will need to have at least ten ranks in four discipline skills. I recommend hide, concentration, tumble and balance or jump. (Balance is better thematically with your iron heart focus, but rarely needs to be invested fully up to 10 ranks.) You’ll need a bit of perform (dance) to qualify for shadowdancer, but it’s hardly essential to the build. Your two monk levels should be enough to qualify there.
You’ll also need skill tricks to qualify for uncanny trickster. Acrobatic Backstab, Extreme Leap, Twisted Charge, Walk the Walls, Shrouded Dance, Nimble Charge and Back on Your Feet are all good options.
Your equipment recommendations are going to be roughly the same for this build as the other: You’ll build yourself out like a standard ToB sneak. Your fighting style is based around a reach weapon and an unarmed strike. You’re not a tripper, so pick any reach weapon that suits your style. You’ll want light armor that doesn’t impose an armor check penalty, preferably with the greater shadow and silent moves enhancements. If you have access to serpent armor fairly early on, you can save a feat on the build by taking Evasive Reflexes instead of Combat Reflexes (which will allow you to qualify for shadowdancer). This is even better for you than for the Heir of Shadow, since it frees up a feat for Mage Slayer. And if it’s allowed, the 3.0 sparring dummy of the master is highly recommended for any build with monk levels, and is especially good for this build, which takes multiple five foot steps a round.
Other than that, the lack of a Wisdom focus means you’re actually a bit easier to equip than the Heir of Shadow. Boost Strength and Dex and focus on items that increase your stealth, like the collar of umbral metamorphosis (you already have a better version of HiPS, but it’s still a sizable boost to hide).
INTRODUCTION
With more than a decade and a half of toying around with 3.5, I’ve accumulated a lot of spare builds and ideas. While I don’t have an active game going right now, I still like to pop open my builds folder and try to refine things. Recently I decided to make a dedicated effort to flesh out some of these builds into full write-ups, and reached out to some friends in the CO community who might be interested in doing the same. In the spirit of Tempest Stormwind’s Weekly Optimization Showcase (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?), I thought I’d showcase the end results here.
The goal is (usually) not to show off any fancy new TO trick, but to showcase effective, playable builds and spur discussion. While each of us has a different build philosophy, in general the intent is to create something that can be played in most groups from level 1 to level 20. Again, the goal is discussion, so feel free to discuss the build, talk about other options, make suggestions or tear it all to shreds. Also, feel free to use anything showcased here in any of your campaigns—and let us know how they work out if you do!
Right now the group consists of myself, the Viscount, Akal Saris, Venger and WhamBamSam, with a couple of other folks hopefully on their way. Typically one of us writes up the build concept and possibly a stub, the others share feedback on Discord or in some of the shared documents we have, and together we refine things until we’re happy with the final product. I’ll list the build’s main author whenever I showcase a particular build.
Buffsader (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?559259-Optimzation-Showcase-in-the-Playground-Buffsader) (PK, ToB/Gish/Party Support)
The Utility Belt (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?560988-Optimzation-Showcase-in-the-Playground-The-Utility-Belt) (PK, Psionics/Stealth/Utility)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless War Mind (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?569004-Optimization-Showcase-in-the-Playground-Eternal-Sunshine-of-the-Spotless-War-Mind) (PK, ToB/Psionics/Melee Damage)
The Melding Pot (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?579458-Optimization-Showcase-in-the-Playground-The-Melding-Pot) (Veng, Incarnum/Utility)
That’s So Raven (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?581950-Optimization-Showcase-in-the-Playground-That%92s-So-Raven) (PK, Gish/Ranged/Debuff)
We’ve got another of mine: Dancing in the Dark, a double showcase featuring a pair of stealthy initiators!
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9PAQ_dATazM/TcqcQgI4B6I/AAAAAAAAAPg/lT3zMLwpkaw/s1600/ninja-cat-lolcats.jpg
Dancing in the Dark
This gun’s for hire / Even if we’re just dancing in the dark...
BACKGROUND
I love skill-focused builds, especially involving stealth. While not necessarily the most effective in combat, I just find them a ton of fun to play. But how can someone effectively use stealth in combat? There are a lot of barriers to effectively hiding in combat. Ranged attackers have the sniping option (though that’s also hard to optimize), but what about melee brutes? Is there a way to effectively make a melee build that focuses on stealth?
This is a concept I’ve played with a lot over the years, and one I return to every now and then. This time it came from a simple idea: what about using stealth alongside lockdown techniques? It turns the usual method of being a BFC lock-down fighter on its head: instead of forcing opponents to attack you, you make yourself difficult to locate or attack, and when they decide to move away in order to focus on your allies, you prevent them from doing so.
But what happens after you reveal yourself to make an attack of opportunity? When I started brainstorming for this build, I thought of a lot of interesting ways to generate off-turn movement as a way to re-hide. It was the Viscount who reminded me of Sidestep, a very nice feat that allows you to take a five foot step following an attack of opportunity. This was exactly what the build needed, giving it the ability to deliver an AoO and then step back into hiding. And while the pre-reqs for Sidestep are usually a bear, they also lined up perfectly with the requirements for shadowdancer, which in turn provides what is quite possibly the single best version of hide in plain sight in all of 3.5. (Seriously though, why are there so many versions of hide in plain sight?)
In the end I came up with two versions of this build, both centering on this basic trick. One is a relatively straightforward swordsage, while the other is a master of nine and involves a lot of moving parts and one moderately cheesy optimization trick. Rather than pick one or the other, I’ve decided to go ahead and showcase both for you today: the Heir of Shadow and the Sentinel of Nine!
THE BASICS
Race: Human. Not only are these builds incredibly feat hungry, but human is downright essential in order to qualify for the Siberys sentinel mark.
Build Stub: There are two versions of the build here. The first is a Swordsage 12/Monk 2/Crusader 2/Shadowdancer 1/Heir of Siberys 3, and the second is a Monk 2/Fighter 2/Warblade 5/Shadowdancer 1/Master of Nine 5/Heir of Siberys 2/Uncanny Trickster 3.
ACFs: Both builds use cobra strike monk with the decisive strike and invisible fist ACFs.
Alignment: Anything but true neutral.
BUILD ONE: THE HEIR OF SHADOW
Level
Class
Feats
Class Features
Maneuvers
Notes (Click to Expand)
1st
Swordsage 1
Darkstalker, Combat Reflexes
Quick to act +1, discipline focus (weapon focus)
Counter charge, distracting ember, moment of perfect mind, sapphire nightmare blade, shadow blade technique, stone bones, child of shadowS
Swordsage is going to be your main class here. It has almost everything you need to fit your fighting style: great skill points off an excellent list, a ton of maneuvers and stances and some solid class features. Darkstalker is pretty much required for any stealthy build, and I’m always a fan of taking it as early as possible. While the big bad enemies with blindsight don’t tend to bother themselves with level 1 characters, being able to sneak past things like guard dogs without worry is pretty clutch even at these levels.
Your maneuvers are going to focus primarily on setting sun, diamond mind and shadow hand. Setting sun and diamond mind provide the majority of the counters that will become your bread and butter, while diamond mind and shadow hand give you most of your strikes. Right now your goal is to stay mobile, stay hidden and make strikes of opportunity whenever possible.
2nd
Cobra strike monk 1
Dodge, Improved Unarmed Strike
Unarmed strike, decisive strike, bonus feat
You’ve got some hefty feat requirements, so the lowly monk comes in to save the day. While there are other options for this slot (psychic warrior in particular is tempting thanks to access to the chameleon power), monk has some particularly nice bonuses. First, it allows you to keep your relevant skills (hide, move silently, sense motive and concentration) up. Second, it provides you with decisive strike, which is a very solid option on a build that focuses on counterattacks: make a single unarmed attack as a full-round action, and that and all other attacks you make until the next round will deal double damage.
Monk also provides you with an unarmed strike, so go ahead and grab a reach weapon and use that unarmed strike for adjacent foes. Alongside Combat Reflexes and your various ways of repositioning, you should be able to generate quite a few off-turn attacks if you threaten a large area.
3rd
Cobra strike monk 2
Mobility, Stand Still
Invisible fist, bonus feat
Evasion is nice and all, but invisible fist is simply too good to pass up, providing you with a regular source of immediate action invisibility. You also pick up Stand Still at this level. While Stand Still often gets overlooked for tripping as a method of locking down foes, it is one of the most consistent and reliable methods around. Unlike tripping, Stand Still effectively locks down large or high-Strength/Dexterity foes, and does not require the resource investment of the trip line (three feats, heavy Strength investment, items or abilities that can increase size, etc).
At this point, your primary method of attacking should already start to be clear. Attack, go invisible with invisible fist, position yourself appropriately, and when any foes attempt to move around you, lock them down with Stand Still.
4th
Swordsage 2
AC bonus
Baffling defense, step of the windS
Popping back to swordsage for second level maneuvers, baffling defense gives you a reliable way to evade attacks against most foes, as your skill check will typically outstrip the attack rolls of an appropriately-CR’d foe. Step of the wind is a situational stance, but when you’re facing difficult terrain, it’s a godsend. (Difficult terrain is actually quite nice for you if you have stance of the wind up; if your allies are able to create it, go to town.)
5th
Crusader 1
Furious counterstrike, steely resolve 5
Mountain hammer, crusader’s strike, douse the flames, charging minotaur, foehammer, iron guard’s glareS
Crusaders are the more traditional lockdown initiators thanks to their access to devoted spirit stances. Iron guard’s glare is the first of these, giving all enemies you threaten a penalty if they attempt to attack your allies. There’s nothing preventing this from remaining active even while you are invisible or hidden; your opponents are aware of its effects (and hence are aware you’re threatening them), but it still forces them into one of several bad choices: attempt to attack a hidden or invisible foe, attack your allies at a penalty, or try to move out of your threatened area (which in turn triggers an AoO and Stand Still).
Mountain hammer is well known for providing excellent utility in addition to providing solid melee damage. Taking multiple stone dragon maneuvers also helps ease qualification for things like bonesplitting strike and ancient mountain hammer down the road.
6th
Swordsage 3
Sidestep
Cloak of deception
Sidestep is an extremely fun feat from Miniature Handbook that gives you a free five foot step any time you make an attack of opportunity. This kind of off-turn repositioning is fantastic in and of itself, but you’ll get even more use out of it very soon. And with another second level maneuver, go ahead and pick up cloak of deception. While this won’t allow you to remain invisible after your turn ends, it’s still a handy tool to have for the turns when you’re waiting for your invisible fist ability to refresh.
7th
Swordsage 4
Discipline focus (insightful strike)
Insightful strike, stone bones -> shadow garrote
Insightful strike: the ability so nice, we get it twice! The maneuver is very nice here. Your concentration check is easy to boost and should provide good, consistent damage that continues to scale a bit even as you level. And with your first swap, go ahead and ditch stone bones, which was only useful in the very early levels, for shadow garrote. 5d6 damage on a ranged touch attack with the possibility to make someone flat-footed is a decent option for foes you can’t reach, especially since ranged attacks are hard to come by for most initiators.
Insightful strike the ability, on the other hand, is less nice… free damage never goes amiss, but you won’t be able to apply it to your reach weapon unless you shell out for spiked chain proficiency somewhere down the line.
8th
Shadowdancer 1
Hide in plain sight
After taking Sidestep, you more or less auto-qualify for shadowdancer, so take this dip and don’t look back. Shadowdancer has the absolute best version of hide in plain sight: you can hide while being observed and without need for any concealment, as long as you are within 10’ of a shadow. And with this lovely ability, your main attacking method is complete.
For those who don’t play a lot of stealthy characters, it’s always worth remembering that hiding is not an action in and of itself. Instead, if you meet the standards for making a hide check, you can make one as part of some other movement. So what does that mean for you, now that you can hide under almost any conditions? During your turn, you can use a maneuver or make a decisive strike, then use a move action or five foot step to hide in plain sight, positioning yourself so that you threaten as many foes as possible. When a foe provokes, you can make an attack of opportunity or lock them down with Stand Still. This, of course, will reveal your position… but then you get a free five foot step from Sidestep, allowing you to step back into hiding. It’s a nasty little one-two punch that should flummox quite a lot of foes.
9th
Crusader 2
Mage Slayer
Indomitable soul
Thicket of bladesS
Two very big lockdown abilities here. First, we jump back into crusader to pick up the ultimate lockdown stance, thicket of blades. This prevents foes from withdrawing or making five foot steps to avoid you, and combined with Stand Still, provides incredible battlefield control. Second, you pick up Mage Slayer, which prevents spellcasters you threaten from casting defensively.
10th
Swordsage 5
Quick to act +2
Bonesplitting strike, pearl of black doubtS
Now that you have thicket of blades, swordsage will mostly finish things out. Bonesplitting strike is guaranteed Constitution damage on a hit and is especially good against foes with lots of HD; thanks to your levels in crusader you know plenty of stone dragon maneuvers and have no issues qualifying. You also get another stance here. While it’s rare that you’ll want to give up thicket of blades, pearl of black doubt can be incredibly effective when fighting large groups, so it’s a good one to keep in your toolkit.
11th
Swordsage 6
Hand of death, shadow blade technique -> obscuring shadow veil
Shadow blade technique isn’t doing much for you, so go ahead and swap it out for obscuring shadow veil, which deals decent damage and potentially provides a nasty debuff for a round. Hand of death is pretty much a flat save-or-lose, and while the DC doesn’t scale, it’s still decent against enemies with low to moderate Fort saves.
12th
Swordsage 7
Heroic Spirit
Sense magic
Rapid counter
I’ve never really understood why swordsages get sense magic, but I can’t deny that it’s a handy ability. Heroic Spirit is useless if you aren’t playing with action points, but it’s a required feat. If you are playing with action points, three more every level certainly won’t go amiss. Anyhow, despite costing a useless feat to get in, heir of Siberys provides multiple bonus feats in return, so this is hardly a relevant feat tax.
Rapid counter may seem like an odd choice for a counter, since it’s pretty rare in my experience that Combat Reflexes on a Dex-heavy build doesn’t provide a sufficient number of attacks of opportunity, but it’ll get more useful in the very near future.
13th
Heir of Siberys 1
Pursue OR Action Surge
Additional action points, bonus feat
Heir of Siberys may seem like an odd choice, but it’s actually going to be the final piece in the puzzle that brings this build together. This first level won’t do much for you unless you’re playing with action points, but if you are, Pursue is a neat little feat that gives you free movement any time a foe you threaten makes a five foot step. Meanwhile, Action Surge allows you to spend two action points to take an extra move or standard action. The latter is clearly better, though it does burn through your action points faster, but Pursue is more on theme with the rest of the build. It’s up to you; it’s something you get for free but hardly the focus of the build.
14th
Heir of Siberys 2
Mark of Stars
Siberys mark
Ah, now this is more like it. At this level your Siberys mark fully forms, letting you use mind blank as a spell-like ability once a day. This is actually a level earlier than a wizard would get access to it. Mind blank is one of those absolutely essential buffs, just flat out negating a wide swath of negative effects, many of which could be completely devastating not just to you but to your whole party. That said, it has extra synergy for you. In addition to more or less negating the entire school of enchantment, mind blank also protects you from many divination spells that might otherwise reveal your location. With Darkstalker keeping you from being located by alternate senses and mind blank blocking most divination magic, you should now be incredibly difficult to pin down.
That’s not all you get at this level, though. Now that you have a Siberys mark, you qualify for one of the best feats in all of D&D 3.5: Mark of Stars. In addition to a flat bonus to AC and saves, this feat means you are never surprised and never flat-footed. Wizards will blow a 9th-level spell slot on foresight to avoid being surprised or flat-footed, but you don’t need to do anything so fiddly. This is especially relevant for you, since being flat-footed will prevent you from using your immediate action counters or taking AoOs.
15th
Heir of Siberys 3
Adaptive Style, Evasive Reflexes
Improved Siberys mark
Another use of mind blank each day is nice, I suppose, in case you get hit with a dispel. More notable here are your feats. Adaptive Style is nice for any swordsage, though I find it’s less essential than most claim; spending a full-round action, whether it’s to recover a single maneuver or swap out your maneuvers completely, is still going to be hard to justify in most combats, so unless combat runs particularly long, you’re often better off not spending the action. However, with your focus on off-turn attacks, it’s a bit less prohibitive.
Evasive Reflexes allows you to replace an attack of opportunity with a five foot step. This may seem redundant on a build that already has Sidestep, but Sidestep can only be used once per round, while Evasive Reflexes is only limited by your total number of AoOs. As was mentioned before, free off-turn movement is great for you and can give you another opportunity to hide. And thanks to rapid counter, you can even still make an attack before using Evasive Reflexes to step into hiding.
16th
Swordsage 8
Discipline focus (defensive stance)
Moment of alacrity, sapphire nightmare blade -> greater insightful strike
Back into swordsage for the last five levels. Sapphire nightmare blade probably hasn’t been readied in ages, so drop it for greater insightful strike: all the consistent damage of insightful strike, but you know, more so. You’ll also pick up moment of alacrity here, which allows you to spend a swift action to adjust your initiative. This actually works especially well alongside Adaptive Style, allowing you to spend a swift action to shuffle yourself to the front of the initiative cycle, then a full-round to adjust your maneuvers on the fly.
17th
Swordsage 9
Evasion
Shadow blink, shifting defenseS
Hey, 15 levels later, you finally pick up evasion to make up for the fact that you traded it away for invisible fist!
Shadow blink is one of those OMG maneuvers that you should almost always take if you qualify for it; swift action teleportation is just that good. And with your stance, go ahead and nab shifting defense. This actually gives some decent competition to thicket of blades; every time someone attacks you, you get a free five foot step (and a free chance to hide).
18th
Swordsage 10
Elusive Target
Quick to act +3
Ancient mountain hammer, distracting ember -> hydra slaying strike
Since you qualify for it, might as well take Elusive Target. Negating Power Attack is downright lifesaving, while diverting defense is just hilarious. As for your maneuvers, ancient mountain hammer is your high damage workhorse, doing excellent damage and bypassing damage reduction (very relevant at these levels!) or hardness. Hydra slaying strike won’t be useful every encounter, but when it works it really works. It’s a good one to keep in reserve and bring up when necessary via your moment of alacrity + Adaptive Style shuffle.
19th
Swordsage 11
One with shadow
Incorporeality lets you completely avoid a broad swath of effects, making one with shadow a phenomenal counter. Alongside your immunities from mind blank and Mark of Stars, this and diamond defense can allow you to avoid most attacks.
20th
Swordsage 12
Discipline focus (insightful strike)
Diamond defense, insightful strike -> quicksilver motion
Without Power Attack or Craven, the typical high-damage maneuver at this level (diamond nightmare blade) is largely going to be outclassed by ancient mountain hammer and greater insightful strike. Instead, go ahead and pick up diamond defense, which should allow you to more or less auto-succeed on any save, and trade the baby version of insightful strike for quicksilver motion, granting you even more swift action movement.
SWORDSAGE
1- Counter charge, distracting ember, moment of perfect mind, sapphire nightmare blade, shadow blade technique, stone bones, child of shadowS, step of the windS
2- Baffling defense, cloak of deception
3- Insightful strike, shadow garrote, pearl of black doubtS
4- Bonesplitting strike, hand of death, obscuring shadow veil
5- Rapid counter, shifting defenseS
6- Moment of alacrity, greater insightful strike
7- Shadow blink, ancient mountain hammer, hydra slaying strike, quicksilver motion
8- One with shadow, diamond defense
CRUSADER
1- Crusader’s strike, douse the flames, charging minotaur, iron guard’s glareS
2- Mountain hammer, foehammer
3- Thicket of bladesS
With a melee focus, Strength is obviously important. Dexterity covers your stealth skills and your total number of AoOs. You get some decent mileage out of Wisdom as well, between your AC bonus and the shadow hand maneuvers. As for the rest… well, you probably don’t want a negative intelligence, but you should have more than enough skill points even with a low Int. And Charisma can be dumped entirely.
SAMPLE STAT ARRAYS:
28-point buy: Str 16/Dex 14/Con 12/Int 10/Wis 14/Cha 8
32-point buy: Str 16/Dex 16/Con 12/Int 10/Wis 14/Cha 8
Hide and move silently are incredibly important to you for obvious reasons; keep them as high as possible at all times. Sense motive and concentration will also come in handy, as they drive key maneuvers. You’ll need a bit of perform (dance) to qualify for shadowdancer, but it’s hardly essential to the build. Your two monk levels should be enough to qualify there. I’d also highly recommend tumble, and like into skill tricks like Acrobatic Backstab as well.
You’ll build yourself out like a standard ToB sneak. Your fighting style is based around a reach weapon and an unarmed strike. You’re not a tripper, so you can pick pretty much any reach weapon that suits your style. You’ll want light armor that doesn’t impose an armor check penalty, preferably with the greater shadow and silent moves enhancements. If you have access to serpent armor fairly early on, you can save a feat on the build by taking Evasive Reflexes instead of Combat Reflexes (which will allow you to qualify for shadowdancer). And if it’s allowed, the 3.0 sparring dummy of the master is highly recommended for any build with monk levels, and is especially good for this build, which takes multiple five foot steps a round.
Other than that, boost Strength/Dex/Wisdom and focus on items that increase your main skills. Hide and move silently are obviously the most important, so consider things like the collar of umbral metamorphosis (you already have a better version of HiPS, but it’s still a sizable boost to hide). Meanwhile, concentration in particular is a great choice to boost sky-high, since greater insightful strike will be one of your most consistent damage options throughout the mid to high levels.
BUILD TWO: THE SENTINEL OF NINE
Level
Class
Feats
Class Features
Maneuvers/Spells
Notes (Click to Expand)
1st
Cobra strike monk 1
Improved Unarmed Strike, Dodge, Darkstalker, Improved Initiative
Unarmed strike, decisive strike, bonus feat
For this version of the build, you’ll open as a monk rather than a swordsage. Monk actually still has all the skills you’ll need to make this work, so this isn’t a bad trade-off. You’re fast and stealthy and hyper-mobile at this level, but you won’t deal a ton of damage. Don’t worry, we’ll give you some more useful things to do in combat shortly.
2nd
Cobra strike monk 2
Mobility
Bonus feat, invisible fist
As with the other build, invisible fist is an extremely useful addition to your stealth techniques, while Mobility assists with your, um, mobility, and helps you qualify for shadowdancer, Sidestep and Elusive Target.
3rd
Fighter 1
Martial Study (shadow blade technique), Stand Still
Bonus feat
Shadow blade technique
Fighter may seem like an odd choice here, but this version of the build needs to front-load even more feats than usual in order to make master of nine work. You could do a feat rogue instead, and if you’re starting at later levels that’s probably the better route, but at level 3 when BAB still matters, that little +1 can make a heck of a difference.
With your fighter feat, go ahead and grab Martial Study to pick up a shadow hand maneuver. Shadow blade technique is probably the most useful of these, allowing you to make more accurate attacks (and possible deal a little bit of extra damage). While you could take crusader’s strike here instead, which would free up a maneuver known at level 11, going with a shadow hand maneuver also adds Hide to your skill list for the rest of your career. As a stealth-focused character, that’s pretty hard to pass up.
Fighter also brings with it martial weapon proficiency, so you can now fight with a decent reach weapon (while still threatening adjacent enemies with your unarmed strike). Combined with Stand Still, you should be able to start locking down foes pretty effectively. You’re still an excellent sneak, and you can position yourself where you’d like, make an attack and disappear via invisible fist, and then force your enemies to remain where they are when they attempt to go and attack your allies instead.
4th
Fighter 2
Combat Reflexes
Bonus feat
As a character focused on AoOs, Combat Reflexes would be a must even if you didn’t need it for shadowdancer.
5th
Warblade 1
Battle clarity (Reflex saves), weapon aptitude
Moment of perfect mind, rabid wolf strike, mountain hammer, punishing stanceS
Warblade finally comes online, giving you a good range of offensive options. Moment of perfect mind is even more essential for this version of the build than the swordsage version, as you will likely have a lower Will save. You’ll be forced to spread around your maneuvers at this level in order to qualify for Mo9, but the delayed entry to warblade means you actually have some decent offensive options despite that. Rabid wolf strike and mountain hammer are both excellent ways to go on the offensive (in addition to the utility that mountain hammer provides), and punishing stance similarly increases your damage output (including making your AoOs deadlier). And by remaining hidden or invisible as much as possible, you should hopefully be able to mitigate some of the defensive vulnerabilities of punishing stance and rabid wolf strike.
6th
Warblade 2
Adaptive Style
Uncanny dodge
Douse the flames
Adaptive Style is less good for you than for a swordsage, but it’s required, and it’ll come in handy down the road. You need a white raven maneuver in order to qualify for Mo9, and douse the flames fits in best with your lockdown techniques.
7th
Warblade 3
Battle ardor (critical confirmation)
Iron heart surge
There are a lot of excellent level 3 maneuvers for a warblade, but I recommend the tried and true iron heart surge. You’re supposed to be locking the enemy down, not getting locked down yourself, so go ahead and surge your way out of every negative condition that might prevent you from doing your job.
8th
Warblade 4
Pearl of black doubtS
As mentioned in the swordsage version of this build, pearl of black doubt is just a fantastic option to have for when you fight large groups of enemies.
9th
Shadowdancer 1
Sidestep
Hide in plain sight
I’ll just go ahead and quote from the swordsage version of this build: “After taking Sidestep, you more or less auto-qualify for shadowdancer, so take this dip and don’t look back. Shadowdancer has the absolute best version of hide in plain sight: you can hide while being observed and without need for any concealment, as long as you are within 10’ of a shadow. And with this lovely ability, your main attacking method is complete.
For those who don’t play a lot of stealthy characters, it’s always worth remembering that hiding is not an action in and of itself. Instead, if you meet the standards for making a hide check, you can make one as part of some other movement. So what does that mean for you, now that you can hide under almost any conditions? During your turn, you can use a maneuver or make a decisive strike, then use a move action or five foot step to hide in plain sight, positioning yourself so that you threaten as many foes as possible. When a foe provokes, you can make an attack of opportunity or lock them down with Stand Still. This, of course, will reveal your position… but then you get a free five foot step from Sidestep, allowing you to step back into hiding. It’s a nasty little one-two punch that should flummox quite a lot of foes.”
10th
Warblade 5
Blind-Fight
Bonus feat
Lightning recovery
Imagine trying to lock someone down with Stand Still, only to miss—how embarrassing! Lightning recovery is like viagra for warblades: it ensures that you always perform when you need to. The bonus feat here is never a bad thing to have, and also gives you the last feat you need to qualify for master of nine.
11th
Master of Nine 1
Crusader’s strike, bounding assault
Well, it took a lot to get here, but trust me, it’s worth it. With entry into Mo9, you immediately start learning a ridiculous number of maneuvers from any discipline. Crusader’s strike is almost never going to be readied, but you’ll need a devoted spirit maneuver without pre-reqs in order to qualify for thicket of blades next level. Bounding assault is basically charging on steroids, allowing you to move to pretty much anywhere on the battlefield and attack.
12th
Master of Nine 2
Heroic Spirit
Dual stance
Rapid counter, thicket of bladesS
And here we go. Thanks to nabbing crusader’s strike last level, you now qualify for thicket of blades, and your lock-down strategy is more or less complete. Dual stance doesn’t do a ton for you yet, but trust me, it’s going to become one of the most useful tools in your toolbox eventually. Right now it means that for a couple of rounds per day, you can activate pearl of black doubt or punishing stance without giving up thicket of blades.
Rapid counter may seem like an odd choice for a counter, since it’s pretty rare in my experience that Combat Reflexes doesn’t provide a sufficient number of attacks of opportunity, but it’ll get more useful in the very near future.
13th
Heir of Siberys 1
Pursue OR Action Surge
Additional action points, bonus feat
Again, quoting from the above build: “Heir of Siberys may seem like an odd choice, but it’s actually going to be the final piece in the puzzle that brings this build together. This first level won’t do much for you unless you’re playing with action points, but if you are, Pursue is a neat little feat that gives you free movement any time a foe you threaten makes a five foot step. Meanwhile, Action Surge allows you to spend two action points to take an extra move or standard action. The latter is clearly better, though it does burn through your action points faster, but Pursue is more on theme with the rest of the build. It’s up to you; it’s something you get for free but hardly the focus of the build.”
14th
Heir of Siberys 2
Mark of Stars
Siberys mark
And once again, from the previous writeup: “Ah, now this is more like it. At this level your Siberys mark fully forms, letting you use mind blank as a spell-like ability once a day. This is actually a level earlier than a wizard would get access to it. Mind blank is one of those absolutely essential buffs, just flat out negating a wide swath of negative effects, many of which could be completely devastating not just to you but to your whole party. That said, it has extra synergy for you. In addition to more or less negating the entire school of enchantment, mind blank also protects you from many divination spells that might otherwise reveal your location. With Darkstalker keeping you from being located by alternate senses and mind blank blocking most divination magic, you should now be incredibly difficult to pin down.
That’s not all you get at this level, though. Now that you have a Siberys mark, you qualify for one of the best feats in all of D&D 3.5: Mark of Stars. In addition to a flat bonus to AC and saves, this feat means you are never surprised and never flat-footed. Wizards will blow a 9th-level spell slot on foresight to avoid being surprised or flat-footed, but you don’t need to do anything so fiddly. This is especially relevant for you, since being flat-footed will prevent you from using your immediate action counters or taking AoOs.”
15th
Master of Nine 3
Evasive Reflexes
Perfect form
Moment of alacrity, rallying strike
Back into Mo9. Evasive Reflexes combos with rapid counter to provide even more off-turn movement without sacrificing an attack of opportunity; among other things, this lets you pull off your Sidestep trick more than once a round. And moment of alacrity gives you the ability to shuffle initiative as a swift action. This actually works really nicely with Adaptive Style: activate moment of alacrity as a swift, spend a full round to reshuffle and regain all your maneuvers (tailoring your maneuver selection to the current encounter, ‘natch) and then go again as quickly as possible thanks to the fact that you were bumped to the head of the initiative.
Rallying strike is some solid in-combat healing for the whole party, though you’re really just taking it to make sure you qualify for strike of righteous vitality down the road.
16th
Uncanny Trickster 1
Bonus trick, favorite trick
You’ll want to delay your next level of Mo9 so that you can nab an 8th-level stance, so let’s pop into uncanny trickster. This is a fairly well-known way to bootstrap initiator levels: uncanny trickster is not an initiating class, so you add ½ its levels to your IL, but you can use it to advance an initiating class as well. In effect, you’ll get +3.5 IL in 3 levels. That’s going to be just enough to let you qualify for 9ths at level 20. Handy!
(As an aside, while this type of IL bootstrapping will let you qualify for 9ths, the build actually works just fine without it… so if this is just a bit too cheesy for your table, everything here still works. See the variants section for more details.)
You also get a favorite skill trick that you can use multiple times in an encounter. I’m a fan of Acrobatic Backstab in particular, but you’ll get a few, so pick what looks good to you. Extreme Leap, Twisted Charge, Walk the Walls, Shrouded Dance, Nimble Charge and Back on Your Feet are all useful options as well.
17th
Uncanny Trickster 2
Bonus trick, favorite trick, improved uncanny dodge
Bounding assault -> quicksilver motion
By advancing warblade, you’ll get a swap at this level. Bounding assault is nice but quicksilver motion is even better, so go ahead and swap this one out.
18th
Uncanny Trickster 3
Elusive Target
Bonus trick, favorite trick, tricky defense, battle cunning (damage)
Diamond defense
There are a lot of great 8th-level maneuvers you can pick up here, but you can never go wrong with diamond defense, which more or less guarantees that you succeed a saving throw as an immediate action. It’s not fancy but it’s literally life-saving. And hey, battle cunning is small potatoes at this point but is actually a pretty consistent damage boost, since your fighting style means a good number of your enemies will be flat-footed.
Elusive Target, as referenced in the other writeup, is a fantastic defensive feat, though this build might want to consider replacing it with Mage Slayer.
19th
Master of Nine 4
Counter stance
Greater divine surge, stance of alacrityS
We’ll close things out with master of nine. Two things come online here that will work together to make a dramatic difference. The first is counter stance, which allows you to switch stances any time you use a counter. The second is stance of alacrity, which allows you to initiate a counter without taking up your immediate action. This is huge: you have a lot of uses for your swift and immediate action, and this essentially gives you two of them a round. And you can even use this to switch in stance of alacrity when you’re in another stance: use a counter and then activate counter stance to pull up stance of alacrity, and you’ll be able to use another counter that same round. And thanks to dual stance, you can even keep up both stance of alacrity and thicket of blades for several rounds a day.
Greater divine surge is a nuke with some serious drawbacks. Luckily, you have a lot of good ways of avoiding attacks by hiding or turning invisible, so enjoy the ridiculous damage you’ll be dealing.
20th
Master of Nine 5
Mastery of nine
Mountain tombstone strike, strike of righteous vitality
You’ll end with a final level of master of nine, giving you two maneuvers at IL 17. There are a lot of excellent options here. While time stands still is the usual stand-out (and one that you qualify for), you’re not particularly interested in full attacks, so instead go ahead and pick up mountain tombstone strike. 2d6 Con damage with no save is absolutely devastating, and outstrips strike of perfect clarity in damage against high-hit dice opponents (and against some opponents, can kill them outright). When it’s time to just make someone suffer, that’s your go-to choice. And since you have a really reliable high-damage maneuver, go ahead and pick up strike of righteous vitality. This is arguably the best healing in the game, and it also restores your lost Con, meaning you can smack someone with greater divine surge, move into hiding, and then use strike of righteous vitality to heal yourself back up to full.
1- Shadow blade technique, moment of perfect mind, douse the flames, crusader’s strike, punishing stanceS
2- Rabid wolf strike, mountain hammer
3- Iron heart surge, pearl of black doubtS, thicket of bladesS
4- Lightning recovery, bounding assault
5- Rapid counter
6- Moment of alacrity, rallying strike
7- Quicksilver motion
8- Diamond defense, greater divine surge, stance of alacrityS
9- Mountain tombstone strike, strike of righteous vitality
Stats are actually a bit easier to manage for the Sentinel of Nine than they are for the Heir of Shadow. Like the other build, Strength and Dexterity will be very important, but unlike that build, Wisdom doesn’t really play a role. You’ll have moment of perfect mind, iron heart surge and diamond defense for Will saves (not to mention mind blank), so you can safely leave it at 10. A decent Intelligence wouldn’t go amiss, both because it helps keep your skills up and because it powers some of your warblade abilities, but it’s not essential. I’d start with a 14 but not worry about keeping it any higher than that.
SAMPLE STAT ARRAYS:
28-point buy: Str 16/Dex 14/Con 12/Int 14/Wis 10/Cha 8
32-point buy: Str 16/Dex 16/Con 12/Int 14/Wis 10/Cha 8
Like the other version of the build, hide and move silently are far and away the most important options for you. Though you’ll have fewer base skill points, you should make up the difference with a higher Intelligence, making it a wash overall. You’ll have hide as a class skill all game, though move silently will be cross-class for several levels; keep it as high as you can afford, and maybe consider investing in an item of silence. You’ll also want concentration high, though no baffling defense means you don’t need sense motive. That said, you will need to have at least ten ranks in four discipline skills. I recommend hide, concentration, tumble and balance or jump. (Balance is better thematically with your iron heart focus, but rarely needs to be invested fully up to 10 ranks.) You’ll need a bit of perform (dance) to qualify for shadowdancer, but it’s hardly essential to the build. Your two monk levels should be enough to qualify there.
You’ll also need skill tricks to qualify for uncanny trickster. Acrobatic Backstab, Extreme Leap, Twisted Charge, Walk the Walls, Shrouded Dance, Nimble Charge and Back on Your Feet are all good options.
Your equipment recommendations are going to be roughly the same for this build as the other: You’ll build yourself out like a standard ToB sneak. Your fighting style is based around a reach weapon and an unarmed strike. You’re not a tripper, so pick any reach weapon that suits your style. You’ll want light armor that doesn’t impose an armor check penalty, preferably with the greater shadow and silent moves enhancements. If you have access to serpent armor fairly early on, you can save a feat on the build by taking Evasive Reflexes instead of Combat Reflexes (which will allow you to qualify for shadowdancer). This is even better for you than for the Heir of Shadow, since it frees up a feat for Mage Slayer. And if it’s allowed, the 3.0 sparring dummy of the master is highly recommended for any build with monk levels, and is especially good for this build, which takes multiple five foot steps a round.
Other than that, the lack of a Wisdom focus means you’re actually a bit easier to equip than the Heir of Shadow. Boost Strength and Dex and focus on items that increase your stealth, like the collar of umbral metamorphosis (you already have a better version of HiPS, but it’s still a sizable boost to hide).