PDA

View Full Version : Help with my Hexblade/Spellthief Mage-killer



Benejeseret
2007-12-30, 02:19 PM
I am looking to roll a ECL 20 Hexblade(dark companion varient)/Spellthief/Shadowdancer

1. The concept is to be a mage-killer with the Arcane Resistance and Spell Grace plus Mettle/Evasion ignoring most enemy spells.

2. Highest stat is charisma (for curses, saves, and spells) with dex and strength high as well.

3. All (as many as possible) spells known will be swift (like Distract Opponent) so that he can curse, distract, and attack with hit and run tactic

4. Human with Feats so far = dodge/mobility/combat reflex, and I am thinking going down spring attack route to maximize the hit and run (HiPS) tactic. May also get some of the curse feats like empower or extra curses and Ability Focus (curses).

Skills = Hide/movesilently maxed with bluff, UMD, high and balance/tumble/perform dance at least +5.


So what is more important: Hexblade levels or Spellthief or an even mix?

spellthief14/Hexblade4/Shadow Dancer2 (steal 7thlvl spells, curse)
Hexblade9/Spellthief9/Shadow Dancer2 (+3d6 sneak, gr. curse 3/d, steal 4th)

Or give up uncanny dodge/evasion/HiPS

Spellthief 13 / Hexblade 7 (Gr. curse, +4d6 sneak, steal 6th, better BAB

Arbitrarity
2007-12-30, 02:25 PM
I think focus on spellthief. When I look at this character, I see a mage killer, and for that, you want more spell stealing, etc, and just use hexblade as a dip for arcane resistance and mettle. Ofc, paladin levels (say, of tyranny), if they stacked, would also help, but that might be over the top.

Benejeseret
2007-12-30, 02:28 PM
I was thinking smallest Hexblade dip of 4 to get the dark companion (-2AC/saves to all around it) that can be dispelled but not attacked. Since I need 3 anyway for mettle.

Worth it?

ghost_warlock
2007-12-30, 02:36 PM
I'd have to research it a bit more before I can say for sure, but after a quick glance I'd have to say that more spellthief levels are probably the way to go. The class simply offers more versatility and anti-caster survivability.

You don't really need more than the first 4-5 levels of hexblade. You get your arcane resistance at 2nd, mettle at 3rd, and dark companion at 4th. The dark companion doesn't ever improve beyond its initial abilities so there's no reason to stick with the class for its sake. More curses/day may be nice (you get your 2nd/day at 5th) but I think I've seen a +2 curses per day feat poking around on the web or in a DRAGON magazine somewhere. If nothing else, your DM may allow a homebrew. Really, it's about the same as a barbarian taking the Extra Rage feat or a paladin taking the Extra Smite feat.

Sadly, to really be competitive against spellcasters, you'll need to at least emulate about the same level of spellcasting anyway. Which is where max ranks in UMD and a better steal spell come into play. Grab Hexblade for the first few levels of goodness and then stick with either spellthief or another anti-caster PrC.

Another build that I've played around with utilized a rogue dipping into fighter for bonus feats and then going into Occult Slayer from Complete Warrior and picking up the Mage Slayer feat chain from Complete Arcane. I never really finalized or played the build to see how it played out, though, so I can't tell you how effective it is. Keep in mind that the Mage Slayer feat chain will KILL your spellcasting abilites with the hexblade/spellthief build, though (-12 caster levels in all).

Arbitrarity
2007-12-30, 02:38 PM
Yeah, the companion is a nice advantage. Syncs well with the party, and you end up Spellthief 14/Hexblade 4/Shadowdancer 2. Spellthief's 15'th level ability isn't brillian anyways, though it is potentially useful. It also gives you a bit of hexblade casting. Any more though, and you sacrifice some nice spellstealing capacity.

The first Mage Slayer feat might work. -4 CL hurts, but you could counter it with practiced spellcaster if needed. I'm not sure how it interacts with such limited casting though.

F.L.
2007-12-30, 02:44 PM
Hexblade9/Spellthief9/Shadow Dancer2 (+3d6 sneak, gr. curse 3/d, steal 4th)


For this combo, I believe the Master Spellthief feat would apply. Hexblade is an arcane caster class (though it's not the class's focus), and you can cast level 2 arcane spells, so I think you meet the prerequisites. In which case you actually get +3d6 sneak, gr. curse 3/d, and steal 9th.

In fact, I think if you have 8 or more levels in spellthief, as you can cast 2nd level arcane spells by way of spellthief, meeting the prerequisites for this feat, you can then apply master spellthief to a smaller level dip in another arcane casting class. E.g. Spellthief 8 wizard 1, etc.

ghost_warlock
2007-12-30, 02:51 PM
The first Mage Slayer feat might work. -4 CL hurts, but you could counter it with practiced spellcaster if needed. I'm not sure how it interacts with such limited casting though.

True. How Mage Slayer's CL reduction interacts with Steal Spell-Like Ability may come down to a bit of DM fiat, though (Practiced Spellcaster won't compensate for CL reductions on SLAs). Fights may break out, rocks may fall, and catgirls may die. :smalltongue:


For this combo, I believe the Master Spellthief feat would apply. Hexblade is an arcane caster class (though it's not the class's focus), and you can cast level 2 arcane spells, so I think you meet the prerequisites. In which case you actually get +3d6 sneak, gr. curse 3/d, and steal 9th.

In fact, I think if you have 8 or more levels in spellthief, as you can cast 2nd level arcane spells by way of spellthief, meeting the prerequisites for this feat, you can then apply master spellthief to a smaller level dip in another arcane casting class. E.g. Spellthief 8 wizard 1, etc.

And Master Spellthief (Complete Scoundrel) could also help compenstate for lost CLs from Mage Slayer. If you took the Spellthief 14/Hexblade 4/Shadow dancer 2 build, above, and took Mage Slayer, Master Spellthief, and Practiced Spellcaster, your final CL would be 9 and you could steal 8th-level spells. If you dropped the 2 levels of shadow dancer for spellthief levels, your CL would be 10 and you could steal 9th-level spells. Personally, I'd say the ability to steal 9th-level spells > Hide in Plain Sight.

Benejeseret
2007-12-30, 03:40 PM
Master Spellthief....that's brilliant, I cannot believe I missed that thanks.

With that the spellthief14/hexblade4/Shadow Dancer2 looks the best.

Now I just need to center on feats: Like I said i am thinking going towards spring attack chain. Strike in, curse, swift cast, (steal spell/ability), rush out and HiPS, next round cast the stolen spell or consume it to Arcane Strike the target during next hit and run.

Does steal spells work with ranged weapons?

ie. cast sniper shot, hits opponent at max lowbow range (flatfooted) = steals a spell?

mabriss lethe
2007-12-30, 03:50 PM
Definitely go with master spellthief.
Ability focus (hexblade curse) will help a lot. I can't remember a whole lot about the shadow companion variant but if there's a save involved, Ability focus for it might help as well.
You'll want to take Phantom Threat as a 1st level Hexblade spell.(I can't remember if it appears on the sorc/wiz list) If you take hexblade to 5 levels I'd pick up Spell focus (illusion) as a hexblade bonus feat to boost that spell's DC as well. even if you don't, It's probably a good investment.
If you take enough levels in hexblade for higher level spells, some of my favorites are 2nd level: Blindness/deafness, touch of idiocy. 3rd level Hound of doom, vampiric touch, 4th Cursed Blade, evervation, phantasmal killer. (some of these spells also appear on the sorceror/wizard list, and might be availible as part of a spellthief's repertoire).

Spell storing weapons will be a tremendous asset, as are curse spewing ones.


One of my favorite higher level hexblade tricks is to layer on the save softeners(in your case: Shadow companion first, Curse spewing weapon second, and hexblade curse 3rd... and then let loose a phantasmal killer. Nothing humiliates a BBEG in a high level campaign quite like death via mediocre spellcaster.

EDIT: Last I check, steal spell works any time you'd be able to use sneak attack. melee or ranged. (makes a dip into warlock a tremendous advantage)

F.L.
2007-12-31, 12:20 AM
Oh, and 2 other ideas:

A build I saw here involved the use of a ring of blinking and blind-fight, mage killer, and pierce magical concealment feats. Basically, that made every attack of the character deny the target their dex, and hence sneak attackable.

The other idea is to use merciful weapons or saps. Keep stealing a wizard's spells with sneak attacks until they're unconscious, then keep sneak attacking them until you have all their spells.

Benejeseret
2007-12-31, 04:33 PM
I am thinking this so far:

Lvl1 Hexblade1 Cursex1/d (Feats:Combat Reflexes, Dodge)
Lvl2 H.b.2 Arcane Resistance
Lvl3 H.b.3 Mettle (Feat: Mobility)
Lvl4 H.b.4 Dark Companion and lvl1 spells
Lvl5 H.b.5 cursex2/d (Feat: Empower Curse*)
Lvl6 H.b.6 (Feat: Spring Attack)
Lvl7 H.b.7 Greater Curse
Lvl8 H.b.8 Lvl2 spells
Lvl9 Spellthief1 (Feat:Master Spellthief) Steal 4th, sneak+1d6, trapfinding
Lvl10 ShadowDancer HiPS
Lvl11 ShadowDancer Evasion, Darkvision, Uncanny Dodge
Lvl12 H.b.9 curse 3/d (Feat: Arcane Strike) Steal 5th
Lvl13 H.b.10 (Feat: Curse of Sloth)
Lvl14 H.b.11 Steal 6th, 3rd lvl H.b. spells
Lvl15 H.b.12 Aura of unluck (Feat: Bounding Assault)
Lvl16 H.b.13 cursex4/d, Steal 7th
Lvl17 H.b.14 4th lvl H.b. spells
Lvl18 H.b. Steal 8th (Feat: Elusive Target, Curse of Failure)
Lvl19 H.b.16 Aura of unluckx2/d
Lvl20 H.b.17 cursex5/d, Steal 9th

* for obvious reasons the Hexblade Curse feats are added to the Hexblade Feat choice options

Curse ends up DC 18+cha 5/day (normal, sloth, failure)
Casts 4th level H.b. spells
Steals 9th level spells and channels most to Arcane Strike
BAB +18

Cuddly
2007-12-31, 11:17 PM
If you don't mind being an evil SOB, Paladin of Tyranny (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#paladinofTyrannyClassF eatures) will give you an aura that does -2 saves to your enemies, as well as charisma to saves.

Chronicled
2007-12-31, 11:21 PM
I'd take the Dark template from Tome of Magic for Hide in Plain Sight in areas of non-direct sunlight/Daylight spell. It's a lot easier to survive/kill a spellcaster when they don't even know you're there at first.

Ideally, you could buy it off since it's just a LA+1 template.

Benejeseret
2008-01-01, 12:25 AM
PoT does not quite work with what I am thinking as the character is not evil...and more importantly I loose the ability to steal 8th and 9th lvl spells.

The Dark Template may be worth looking up, but again, it is really Evasion that I want. With Evasion and Mettle plus Arcane Resistance making my saves all fairly high I can ignore all spells that I make the save. Uncanny dodge and HiPS are nice additions to be sure.

I will have to look up Dark Template.

Cuddly
2008-01-01, 12:27 AM
Don't you absorb spells you make the save against, anyway?

Chronicled
2008-01-01, 12:51 AM
The Dark Template may be worth looking up, but again, it is really Evasion that I want. With Evasion and Mettle plus Arcane Resistance making my saves all fairly high I can ignore all spells that I make the save. Uncanny dodge and HiPS are nice additions to be sure.

I will have to look up Dark Template.

The problem is all the spells that don't let you save - Forcecage, Irresistable Dance, etc. With HiPS, they can't even target you, nor see you with the normal methods of spell spotting (True Seeing and its lesser ilk).

HiPS is only the best part of the Dark template; it gives you some other very nice bonuses as well (including a +10 unnamed base speed increase and Darkvision).

Feralgeist
2008-01-02, 07:49 AM
what are the other feats in the mage slayer feat chain??? I could only find mage slayer itself

Armads
2008-01-02, 07:53 AM
Pierce Magical Concealment and Pierce Magical Protection. The former negates miss chances from spells (such as Blink), the latter negates stuff like Mage Armor and dispels AC buffs on hit.

By the way, the dark template shouldn't be acquired as a template. It's much better to play 22k to buy it as a magic item (collar of umbral metamorphosis).