Succubus assassin build

[Stormingnorman8]

Playing my first evil campaign, I’m planning on a succubus Assassin build, Dm gave me the green light so now it’s time for equipment, backstory, etc. Any helpful pointers?

[Eldariel]

What level are you starting at? Do you have to contend with Level Adjustment or are you able to play Succubus at the CR? Standard WBL? Backstory, that's something you'll have to come up with yourself - we can help you with mechanics, but you know best what you actually want to RP.

[Stormingnorman8]

What level are you starting at? Do you have to contend with Level Adjustment or are you able to play Succubus at the CR? Standard WBL? Backstory, that's something you'll have to come up with yourself - we can help you with mechanics, but you know best what you actually want to RP.

I believe level one from what I’ve gathered, yes I’ll have a level adjustment of +4. I guess for backstory I was just looking for info on the abyss, some history on succubus, and such.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

First things first, you really don't want to eat that +6 level adjustment. The Level Adjustment Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21076335&postcount=238) suggested that +2 or maybe +3 was far more reasonable.

Secondly, what kind of build are you looking for? Racial HD play relatively well with the Tome of Battle classes if you want to go martial; Swordsage if you want to lean into the sneaky aspect (though honestly your SLAs cover that admirably), Crusader or Warblade if you want pure martial prowess (I'd probably recommend Crusader because it has more maneuvers and more of a charisma synergy, but I've got some definite bias there as well), or mix and match for even more flexibility (maybe even go into Master of Nine).

The Assassin class isn't bad either, for some spellcasting, some sneaking, and some sneak attacks.

If you want to focus on your demonic powers, Fiend of Possession is pretty cool.

If you want to focus on your level draining kisses, that means focusing on grappling... which I know very little about, optimization-wise. Maybe go Totemist, for Girallon Arms and Kraken Mantle? Your Disguise checks are probably going to be good enough to cover up the fact that you've got a few glowing blue limbs.

Speaking of, your charisma is going to be absurd. 2 levels in an evil Paladin variant (Slaughter or Tyranny) would probably be well worth it, because Divine Grace adds Cha to all of your saving throws. Getting decent spellcasting would be tricky (and is once again outside of my spheres of knowledge), but you'd have some pretty hard to make saving throws. There's a whole thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?125732-3-x-X-stat-to-Y-bonus) devoted to adding charisma (and other ability scores too, but Cha is the big one here) to everything possible; may be worth checking out.

I think that's all I got for general ideas.

[Crake]

If you're playing from level 1 and using savage progression, likely from savage species, you aren't going to actually pick a class until level 13, so unless the game plans to go significantly beyond that point, you aren't really going to have many choices to make. You'll have to be more specific about how you want the succubus to do their assassinating, what sort of targets are they going after etc. With just their base abilities, succubi already make excellent assassins, with built in disguises in the form of change shape, social manipulation through charm monster and suggestion (easy ways to get guards away, disguise yourself as a guard, tell them there's an emergency and the captain's looking for them, and that you'll cover their post while they're gone, only to sneak into the king's chambers and murder him), a built in subtle method of killing that the victim likely won't notice, and thus won't cause a scene or make a lot of noise in the form of energy drain, and of course, an easy escape method in the form of jumping out the window and flying until you can teleport away.

It gets even easier if you can teleport in or out, or even ethereal jaunt through the walls and watch your target from the ethereal plane until they're alone. Hell, you even have a built in system to know if someone's onto you or not in the form of detect thoughts.

[Bphill561]

I might be tempted to go Half-fiend using the Savage Progressions breakdown. That has an adjustment of +4, but you can stop progressing the class levels whenever you want to. Second there is the article on different types of half-fiends. They use Succubus as an example in many of the entries. Take 2 levels (adjustment of +2) and latter pick up 3 levels of Uncanny Trickster to advance the last 2 levels. It takes 5 levels, but it is only a LA+2 and uncanny trickster has many rogue skills.



http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20031010a

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060630a

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I might be tempted to go Half-fiend using the Savage Progressions breakdown. That has an adjustment of +4, but you can stop progressing the class levels whenever you want to. Second there is the article on different types of half-fiends. They use Succubus as an example in many of the entries. Take 2 levels (adjustment of +2) and latter pick up 3 levels of Uncanny Trickster to advance the last 2 levels. It takes 5 levels, but it is only a LA+2 and uncanny trickster has many rogue skills.

You could cut a point of LA off of that with Legacy Champion, which works like Uncanny Trickster but is a 10 level class, so you'd only need the first level in the Savage Progression. The downsides of legacy items are numerous, but if your DM lets you create your own (or one of the existing ones lines up well with what you want to do) they can be pretty cool, and Legacy Champion lets you adjust them a bit as well.

[Bphill561]

You could cut a point of LA off of that with Legacy Champion, which works like Uncanny Trickster but is a 10 level class, so you'd only need the first level in the Savage Progression. The downsides of legacy items are numerous, but if your DM lets you create your own (or one of the existing ones lines up well with what you want to do) they can be pretty cool, and Legacy Champion lets you adjust them a bit as well.

Yeah Legacy Champion is better if you can use that book. Especially if you pick an item that you cannot advance after the first few levels, then you don't have to take all the penalties. I got lucky and played in a campaign where you could drop out of the savage species race progressions, and advanced a Succubus that way with Fiend of Possession mixed in.

[Falontani]

Op. Everyone here will want as much information as you can get so that we can help you. Succubus assassin to some of the people here is as open as saying human fighter in other circles.

General information that is nice:
Stats (or point buy allotment)
How powerful you want to be
What content is available
How your dm is handling level adjustment/rhd of the succubus.
Preferred method of assassination.
Any preferences you have.

Once you have a general outline of how a character is going to progress it is easier to assist in creating a back story.

For information on demons and the abyss look into Fiendish Codex 1