[3.5] Character Who Can Assess Others

[Thurbane]

I know these topics have been discussed before, but say I was trying to build a character who can assess enemies...how would you build it?

Many of the options require arcane casting, so Wizard is probably the obvious choice. Beguiler natively gets Sense Motive and has a lot of skill points, so might also be promising. Levels in Urban Savant seem a must.

I'm pretty sure there are ways to estimate relative CRs and HD too, but I can't recall them.

Skills:
Knowledge (arcana/dungeoneering/local/nature/planes/religion): knowledge check to learn about the creature based on type [this can be leveraged into bonuses from the Knowledge Devotion feat, the Urban Savant's Urban Savvy, or the Archivist's Dark Knowledge ability]; results can be boosted through Collector Of Stories skill trick, Trivial Knowledge feat etc.
Martial Lore: know all disciplines known by a particular creature by watching it initiate
Sense Motive: various checks to determine motives etc. Complete Adventurer introduces a use to estimate a creature's CR in relation to your levels/HD. The Combat Intuition feat enhances this usage.
Truespeak : reverse engineer a creature's CR based on the check (?)

Feats:
Combat Awareness: know hp of adjacent creatures.
Mindsight: determine creatures type and Int score.
Vatic Gaze: Sense Motive check to determine highest levels of spells someone can cast.

Classes:
Urban Savant (Urban Savvy): determine BAB, AC, combat related feats, special attacks etc.

Spells/Powers:
Deathwatch (Clr 1): determine if a creature is dead, alive (and if close to death hp wise), undead or nonliving.
Detect <alignment> (Clr 1): Determine alignment of creature, and how strong its alignment aura is.
Detect Undead (Clr 1, Pal 1, Sor/Wiz 1): Detect presence of undead (and therefore can reveal a creatures type). Worth nothing that various classes etc. mimic this, but in relation to other creature types.
Know Greatest Enemy (Blk1, Pal 1): Determines CR range of creatures in area, and the strongest creature in each CR range.
Know Opponent (Brd 3, Clr 3): knows strengths and weaknesses - seems to function quite similarly to Knowledge checks.
Know Vulnerabilities (Brd 2, Clr 3, Sor/Wiz 4): Learn resistances and vulnerabilities of a creature, including those granted by spells.
Metafaculty (Seer 9): know race, alignment, character class and HD range.
Power Sight (Drd 1): determines total HD of one creature.

Items:
?

Looking for build ideas, and any abilities I can add to the list.

Cheers - T

[Venger]

Power sight is a 1st level druid spell that tells you how many hd a creature has.

Sense motive can natively be used to assess opponents and tell you their approximate hd in relation to your own.

[Thurbane]

Power sight is a 1st level druid spell that tells you how many hd a creature has.

Sense motive can natively be used to assess opponents and tell you their approximate hd in relation to your own.

Shame that spell is Druid only. Would be great for an Archivist, but Urban Savant only advances arcane casting, and Vatic Gaze requires arcane caster level.

It would be great if someone wrote a Sense Motive guide, similar to the Appraise (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?561288), Disguise (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?561021), Knowledge (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?514547) and Listen (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?522931) guides.

[flappeercraft]

Mindrape has a less intrusive use in than just altering the mind of a target. As it says on the first sentence "The caster enters the mind of a creature, learning everything that creature knows." You can just not modify anything and learn everything about them.

There's also the know opponent and know vulnerabilities spells.

Finally there is also the Elemental Weird with the Prescience ability which lets them use analyze dweomer clairaudience/clairvoyance, contact other plane, detect thoughts, discern location, find the path, foresight, greater scrying, legend lore, locate creature, locate object, tongues, true seeing, and vision. All of these at will and as free actions. Since its an Su ability you can nab this via Shapechange.

[Unavenger]

Attempting to speak a creature's true name - personal or otherwise - repeatedly until you pass by 0-1 at least once and fail by 1-2 at least once can determine a creature's challenge rating. You must be trained and be able both to succeed and to fail the check. There's no particular reason as far as I can tell why you actually have to speak an utterance; from what I can glean you should be able just to yell into the void until you get the result you want.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Be sure to include Mindsight in LoM.

[Doctor Despair]

Be sure to include Mindsight in LoM.

Is this character designed to spot others, or assess others? There's a lot of optimization options if it's designed to foil stealth, but it seemed like the spirit of the OP was just to determine the strength and abilities of someone who is not hiding.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Is this character designed to spot others, or assess others? There's a lot of optimization options if it's designed to foil stealth, but it seemed like the spirit of the OP was just to determine the strength and abilities of someone who is not hiding.

Mindsight tells you the Int score of anything your telepathy touches.

[Doctor Despair]

Mindsight tells you the Int score of anything your telepathy touches.

Oh! I had completely forgotten about that function! I was just remembering it showing the presence or absence of creatures with an int score.

[Cygnia]

Combat Intuition from Complete Adventurer (p106): Use a free action to assess the challenge presented by a single opponent in relationship to your own level/Hit Dice. Assess the challenge was a new use for Sense Motive presented in CAdv on page 102). +4 bonus to make such a roll and after you make a melee attack on said opponent, you then gain a +1 bonus to the attack roll.

My Marshal makes use of this feat. Sense Motive is my very best friend. :smalltongue:

[Biggus]

The Combat Intuition feat (CAdv p.106) improves your ability to use Sense Motive to assess an opponent's CR relative to yours (as detailed on p.102 of CAdv).

Also, probably not what you're looking for, but just for completeness: the Arcane Lord epic prestige class (Dragon#297 p.52) get an ability called Gauge Weakness which enables you to automatically know one opponent's total save bonuses.

Edit: Damn ninjas

[Saintheart]

No Knowledge Devotion? At least the fluff is very much on topic. Related, Collector of Stories skill trick for IDing monsters.

[Anthrowhale]

The various Detect <alignment> spells are potentially helpful.

[Thurbane]

Great stuff folks, I'll add it in as I get time.


No Knowledge Devotion? At least the fluff is very much on topic. Related, Collector of Stories skill trick for IDing monsters.

KD is a footnote under the skills section; I'll add in CoS.


The various Detect <alignment> spells are potentially helpful.

Good call.

I guess things like Deathwatch, Detect Undead etc. should also be listed.

[Zecrin]

Combat awareness from the PHB II gives you knowledge of adjacent creatures' current hit points.

[Stoic]

Is it possible to get a custom item of Metafaculty?

That would yield a ton of info on the target.

[tiercel]

A bit tangential, but for a character who’s looking to weaponize Sense Motive, Martial Study (Counter Charge, for example) gives Sense Motive as a class skill, and satisfies requirement for picking up Baffling Defense (Sense Motive replaces AC) via slippers of the setting sun.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Power Sight also reveals the highest level of spell the target can cast, so you don't really need Vatic Gaze. And as a 1st level spell you can just get it on a wand and UMD it.

As for Sense Motive the Detect Hostile Intent power lets you use it as a free action as long as the target is within 30ft of you.

[Venger]

Was power sight reprinted? I don't see anything about highest spell level in masters of the wild.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Was power sight reprinted? I don't see anything about highest spell level in masters of the wild.

It doesn't, my bad. Must have gotten mixed up with Arcane Sight.

[eversilentone]

Shame that spell is Druid only. Would be great for an Archivist, but Urban Savant only advances arcane casting, and Vatic Gaze requires arcane caster level.

How about a 2 level dip into Unseen Seer to pick it up and not deviate too much from the rest of an arcane caster build? Arcane Caster 7 / Bard 1 / Unseen Seer 2 / Urban Savant 10 still seems interesting, nevermind if you use another way of getting Bardic Knowledge for US.

[Telonius]

This might actually be a case where you'd want a Truenamer. Keep using Utterances at the target until you nail down its CR.

[Unavenger]

This might actually be a case where you'd want a Truenamer. Keep using Utterances at the target until you nail down its CR.

I mentioned this, but you don't have to be a truenamer or even know any utterances: all you need is to be able to speak a creature's true name successfully and unsuccessfully. Sadly, for a single character, this will only nail down CRs you can both pass and fail the check for

OTOH, if you really do know at least one utterance, you can rely on the Law of Resistance to mess with the check, or use Universal Aptitude to change your truespeak bonus.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

One level of (Prestige) Bard for Bardic Knowledge is basic, but useful.

[daremetoidareyo]

Martial lore can be used to determine opponents disciplines known

[Dr_Dinosaur]

If you're cool with a touch of 3rd party, allow them to take Scout talents from Spheres of Might as feats (Extra Combat Talent). Base ability determines weaknesses, then you can get talents showing you pretty much anything else

[Thurbane]

Thanks for the wonderful input! :smallsmile:

I'm trying to update the OP as we go.

In regards to a build, dips in Unseen Seer and Wyrm Wizard seem like decent ways to get certain divine spells onto an arcane chassis. A dip into Mindbender might also be beneficial, for access to Mindsight.

Also, there is a DM option to waive the Bardic Knowledge req for Urban Savant in favor of ranks in Knowledge (history). Arguably, Harper Mage gets you "Bardic Knowledge" without losing caster levels, but that's iffy.

[Endarire]

A Bard with a Mindbender1 dip and Mindsight (already mentioned but explained here) who also goes Sublime Chord and uses a buncha Divinations seems like a natural way to handle this, as well as to discretely relay information to his party.

[zfs]

Know Greatest Enemy is a 1st level Paladin/Blackguard spell thats can tell you the CR range of all creatures in a 60 ft cone, though it's thwarted by anti-scrying measures. It also tells you the strongest individual in any given range (the ranges are 4 or less, 5-10, 11-15, 16 or higher).

[Buddy76]

Percipient (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20031024a) is a third edition psionic prc that I'm rather fond of. The main problem I have with the class is that it gives you a penalty to initative until you hit level 6 (!!!) of the prc. But other than that, it's full manifesting, has some gaze attacks (If I remember correctly you like Hexer) and, more to the point, it gives you this ability at level 7:


Auric Sight (Sp): At 7th level, the percipient gains the ability to read the auras of a person or thing. This ability is a full-round action. The percipient learns four things about the target: Whether it's good or evil, whether it can manifest psionic powers or cast spells, what its relative power level is to her, and if it possesses any active psionic or magical effect. This power is a divination effect and magical effects that conceal auras, such as nondetection, defeat this power. This ability costs 7 power points to use