Quote Originally Posted by Sstoopidtallkid View Post
Shadow Blade, from ToB. Dex to damage while in a Shadow Hand stance and wielding a Shadow Hand weapon. About on the level of Weapon Finesse, they combine well, but not too overpow...Is that a spiked chain I see there? And Combat Reflexes? A stance that grants concealment for moving? Long story short, I can build a 6th level Rogue that gets Sneak Attack any time he moves 10 ft. And has 5 AoOs a round. It takes work, but that build eliminates one of the main problems for lockdown builds.
I'm pretty sure everybody who has looked at it recognized how useful Shadow Blade could be as soon as they saw it. Weapon Finesse has been wanting a Dex-to-Damage partner since forever. It doesn't hurt that the prereq feats for non-Shadow Hand-using Martial Adept characters (Martial Study, Martial Stance, IIRC) are also self-evidently good choices.

How about the shield feats from PBH2 and.. a few other sources I don't remember right now? It runs contrary to the received wisdom of 'Two-handed weapon good, get an animated shield if you absolutely must have a shield bonus', but there are enough good shield-centered feats to put together a very effective build.