Best at hiding

[SpicyBoi_Nezu]

I'm playing an all elf campaign, I plan on playing a character that specializes specifically in hide and move silently. I thought I would play rogue, but I'm not sure if there are any other classes that are better at this. I have magic items up to 13,000 gp, and plan on playing him like an thief, sneaking in, taking stuff, and sneaking out. He doesn't need open lock or disable device because we have a trap specialist.

*Edit*
We have a trap specialist, a crafting specialist, and a utility caster bard (Specializes in the interpersonal situations)
All of them have average Hide/Move Silently

My old character was a fighter type specialist, and he had a gruesome death because he failed the hide check when escaping a dragon.
I plan on making a character that specializes in stealth and recon, so I don't repeat the mistake.

[Xaotiq1]

Beguilers (PHBII) have Silence and Invisibility on their spell list as well as 6+Int skills and both of your chosen specialty skills on that list. Might be worth a peek.

[heavyfuel]

Couple points

- If your trap specialist isn't as stealthy as you, then your modifier isn't really important.

Think about it like this. You sneak in and reach a locked door, and the person with Open Lock is wearing Full Plate and a Tower Shield. You just defeated the whole point of you getting to that door stealthly.

- You want the Darkstalker feat. If a dog can smell you without rolling any dice, then your stealth skills mods don't matter. Scent, Blindsight, Tremorsense, etc, can all instantly notice you even if your Hide/Move Silently check is 100.

I'm sure other people will be much more thorough than me, but I don't have so much experience playing stealthy characters.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Make a Swordsage or a Beguiler or even a Wild Shape Ranger/Master of Many Forms/Warshaper, or maybe a Spellthief 1/ Psion or Ardent 4/ Psychic Assassin 6/ Slayer 9.

In any case you'll want to take the feat Darkstalker, and get a Ring of the Darkhidden. Darkstalker allows your stealth to thwart nearly every ability that could detect you without making a check, and the ring is because without concealment (such as from darkness) your hide checks automatically fail, so a creature with darkvision would be able to see you without even making a check.

You can't really go wrong with Wild Elf or Snow Elf Swordsage, just stay single-classed for your whole career and be sure to take Weapon Finesse, Shadow Blade, and Adaptive Style.

For a Beguiler you'll want to be a Gray Elf or Fire Elf, after Beguiler 5 take one level of Mindbender and then just stick with Beguiler for the rest of your career. You'll want Mindsight, along with Versatile Spellcaster (and Heighten Spell if necessary) to get early access to the next higher level of spells. This allows you to pick advanced learning spells of up to 2nd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and 9th level. I'd get Ray of Stupidity, Shadow Form, Greater Shadow Conjuration, Greater Shadow Evocation, and Superior Invisibility. Mindsight is one of the senses that beats stealth even through Darkstalker, so you'll notice them before they notice you.

I threw Ranger in there for some variety. Wildshape Ranger trades your combat styles for a Druid's Wild Shape, but only animals of medium or small size, like a Fleshraker dinosaur. Master of Many Forms gets you way better and bigger shapes, and you can take Frozen Wild Shape to get Cryohydra (once you can do huge shapes). Robilar's Gambit with a 12-headed Cryohydra form gets you a 12-bite AoO on anyone that attacks you. Go with a Wild Elf or Snow Elf since neither has a Con penalty.

The Spellthief 1/ Psion or Ardent 4/ Psychic Assassin 6/ Slayer 9 gets 16/20 manifesting (considering the text of Psychic Assassin overrules the table), at a manifester level of 20th with Practiced Manifester (which you'll need to qualify for Psychic Assassin). With Ardent you'll still get max level powers at the levels of a single-classed character since theirs is based on manifester level, rather than class level. Be sure to use the Substitute Powers variant. The Spellthief dip allows you to use wands of any Wizard spells from the schools that a Spellthief gets access to, namely a Wand of Wraithstrike in a wand chamber of one of your weapons. Take Mind Cripple from Psychic Assassin, and you can outright disable even the beefiest opponents in one or two full attacks regardless of their hp, along with one-shotting any aggressive animals that cross your path. Sneak attack damage is the same type of damage as the attack that delivered it, so it adds energy damage to an Energy Ray power.

[skunk3]

First of all, one thing that stealth-based classes greatly benefit from is a houserule to combine move silently + hide. In a lot of games they get combined together as 'sneak.' I personally think this makes sense and is a reasonable change.

Second, there's lots of magical items that can aid with sneakiness. (Gwaeron's Boots, for instance, give you continuously active Pass Without Trace and also make you untraceable via scent.) The Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis is also a ridiculously underpriced item for what it delivers.

Third, some races have natural sneakiness. Take a look at the Whisper Gnome. It's a +0 LA! They get a bonus to hide and move silently checks, low light vision, dark vision, +2 bonus to listen and spot checks, and can use silence as a SLA. They can also take feats to get more uses of silence per day (Extra Silence) and also can take Silencing Strike.


Obviously, Rogue is a great choice if you want to be sneaky but I always like to recommend my favorite class, the Warlock. Warlocks have a few invocations that are great for stealth.

There is also the Dark template which is a +1 but you get, amongst other things, Hide In Plain Sight.

[Bphill561]

Looks like class builds are already covered, so on to cheap magic items

Someone already mentioned the Umbral Metamorphosis collar, in the same book is Shadow Silk (Tome of Magic). Armor made from this material grants an unlisted +2 bonus to Hide and Move Silently and is not too expensive. Leather has a Max dex of 8 as well if shadow silked. It is also neat that it knits itself back together in areas of darkness when damaged.

Drow of the underdark has Trackless boots for 1,000gp that grant a -5 to tracking rolls to follow you and immune to the scent ability.

Masterworked tools can give a +2 circumstance bonus to a skill check, so work those into the boots and normal clothes for another Hide and Move Silent bonus.

Overall that is armor (before possible enchantment costs), +4 Hide and Move Silent that stacks with most magic, and immunity to scent for under 3,000gp.

[Eldariel]

Let's see: You want Hide in Plain Sight (Su) or Camouflage + Hide in Plain Sight (Ex), Skill Mastery: Hide and Move Silently, pumped skills through the roof and then some.


Hide in Plain Sight (Ex) comes kinda late. Wilderness Rogue (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#wildernessRogue) can get it on level 13, Scout on 14 and Ranger on 17. All in the teens. (Su) HiPS comes a lot earlier: Shadowdancer 1 is accessible on ECL 8 relatively easily, Hellbreaker 1 [Fiendish Codex II] on ECL6, Lurking Terror 3 [Libris Mortis] on ECL 8, Planar Touchstone can access 1/day HiPS through The Veil on ECL 5 (technically, but you only get feat on ECL 6 normally). The mentioned Collar works (though it doesn't obviate the need for concealment/cover, it just says you can hide while observed; you'd need Camouflage to go with it) but it's also a bit restricted. Camouflage is from the Ex HiPS classes generally.

Skill Mastery is a bit hard to come by on a decent chassis other than Rogue (that you get on ECL 10 the earliest and that would push down your Hide in Plain Sight). Exemplar on ECL 11 also boosts the skill in question so that's not a bad option, though Evangelist [Complete Divine] and Dungeon Delver [Complete Adventurer] also work. You don't need this of course, but it is good for effective +9 on the check, which is nice.


Far as pumping the skill goes, being as small as possible and pumping your Dex is obvious. Reduce Person is a superb spell to this end, though Polymorph/Wildshape are of course much better. Getting more stats in to the check is nice too; Factotum 3 would add Int and Marshal 1 would add Charisma. Factotum in general is probably a fine chassis for being superstealthy as you also get a smattering of spells including Invisibility (with obvious benefits). The mentioned Beguiler is not a bad choice either.

Considering all this, I'd look into a base caster (Beguiler or Factotum) perhaps dipping for Hide in Plain Sight (though spells do obviate the need for cover/concealment rather effectively as well).

[Malphegor]

On races, since it's all elf, then you need an appropriate stElf race!

Drow can cast Darkness as a SLA 1/day, which is handy for stealth stuff (mechanically it provides 20% miss chance but it is a big blob of darkness, surely a stealthy person can use that). I seem to recall there was a spell or two regarding stealth in Drow of the Underdark that required a drow

Ghost Elves from Dragon Magazine 313 can see invisible things and do weird teleporty stuff , but +1 LA. I haven't played as one, but it sounds stealthy? (I assume they're ghost-like elves and not just elves who are ghosts, I need to pick up that issue)

[Cygnia]

I had a Wand of Silence on my rogue. Initially, I had it for attempting to thwart enemy casters, but then we started calling it the Wand of Circumstantial Bonus when it came to sneaking the party around...:smalltongue:

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

You can get a Wand of Camouflage (SC, 1st) for a +10 circumstance bonus to Hide for 10 minutes at a time. You can also get a Dorje of Chameleon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/chameleon.htm) (XPH, 1st) which gives a +10 enhancement bonus to Hide for 10 minutes at a time. Yes, they're different bonus types so they'll stack if you use both, each wand is only 750 gp.

[Mind's Eye]

For race I would go halfling for the size and racial bonuses.

[Bronk]

Since it's all elf, I'd go with a Forestlord Elf from Dragon Magic, so you have an excuse to be near trees as much as possible. Due to the rules for cover, improved cover, concealment, and trees in general, if you're near a big enough tree you can get as much as +10 to hide (as well as +10 to AC, +5 to reflex saves, improved evasion, and 20% concealment).

Also something to keep in mind, even without hide in plain sight you can also make your hide check in an advantageous spot and keep that roll as you move about.