Making a 'speed and finesse' fighter (3.5 D&D)

[Jeivar]

I've never been very clever when it comes to D&D character creation, but I've decided (somewhat inspired by the Gamers 2 movie), to try and defy this habit of mine and make a fighter built around skill and critical hits rather than the "MRAH, SMASH!" type.

The plan is to have a human fighter, with Dex and Con as the main stats, and the feats I've come up with so far are: Dodge, Mobility, Improved Critical (scimitar), and power critical, as well as coughing up the cash for a Keen scimitar. The basic idea is for a 10th level character with 7 levels of fighter, and 3 levels or Rogue, in order to use Mobility to get into backstabbing positions . . . coupled with a lot of critical hits.

I've thought about also throwing in Improved Feint and Spring Attack. What do you guys think? Is this a decent build for what I have in mind?

[shadow_archmagi]

The feat and the enchant do not stack

[Curmudgeon]

Isn't that what the Swashbucker class is about? Use a mithral chain shirt (light armor), and you're in pretty decent shape.

[Hat-Trick]

Go Swashbuckler/Rogue and take the daring outlaw feat from complete scoundrel. It lets Swashbuckler and Rogue levels stack for the Grace reflex bonus, AC dodge bonus, and Sneak Attack.

[Tempest Fennac]

The Generic Warrior, http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/cl...es.htm#warrior , could be a better choice here in some ways; if you were willing to keep Hide and Move Silently maxed out, you could get Sneak Attacks as feats, and you'd have slightly more freedom for chosing feats.

[RTGoodman]

Well, you're gonna need Weapon Finesse unless you want to suck it up on the attack front.

I'd suggest, instead of Fighter, going with Swashbuckler 3/Rogue 7 with the Daring Outlaw feat (stacks your SB and Rogue levels to determine SA and some other stuff). After that, maybe go with Dervish (lets you treat Scimitars as light weapon, gives some good TWF abilities, etc.).

Also, NEVER, EVER take an odd number of Fighter levels. It's pointless. Improved Feint and Spring Attack aren't really that great either, but they're workable and I think you might need Spring Attack for Dervish anyway.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The class you are wanting is called Swordsage, or possibly Warblade.

Failing that, here's some tips for making a 'finesse fighter':

1) Spring Attack fails. Period. The only use is if you already went Shadowdancer and already have the worthless prerequsites, and even then, not worth it.

2a) TWFing is generally less powerful than THFing unless you get a lot of extra damage per attack. Your idea of using Rogue is good, but your got the proportions backwards. Go Fighter2/Rog8. Never take more than two levels of Fighter. Ever.

2b) In fact, don't bother with Fighter. Just dip Ranger and you are good to go. That nets you TWF and more utility/skills

3) Dervish + twin Scimitars = fun. Check it out.

[Hat-Trick]

and I think you might need Spring Attack for Dervish anyway.

Plus Weapon Focus (any slashing) and ranks in Dance. But it would work wonderfully with the concept.

[Eldariel]

Plus Weapon Focus (any slashing) and ranks in Dance. But it would work wonderfully with the concept.

No, Spring Attack isn't needed. The feat is granted during the progression. You merely need the prerequisites. That said, the class is feat-intensive enough already, so it's only good you can get at least a small break.

With Dervish, it helps to try to make the most out of your crappy prerequisites. Fighter 2/Swashbuckler 3 is a fine alternative entry if you don't want Scout- or Rogue-base, taking Fighter 4 later for Melee Weapon Mastery.


Basically, you need WF, and Mobility, which lead to Weapon Spec > Melee Weapon Mastery and Elusive Target, respectively. The prerequisites suck, but the feats they lead to are pretty good. You also need Combat Expertise, which isn't much good for non-Str based characters (as Trips are Str-checks).

[Keld Denar]

Yea, Tome of Battle is everything you want and more. Need to leap gracefully through the air, tumbling and landing behind your opponent with an graceful thrust? Sudden Leap + Diamond Nightmare Blade. Need to strike with such a quickness and precision that your opponent can't bring his armor into play? Emerald Razor. Need to strike with a blazing flurry of strikes that leave your opponent dizzy? Dancing Mongoose. Need to leap completely over your opponent, stabbing downward as you go? Swooping Dragon. Need to get in, deliver a blow, and retreat before a retaliation? Bounding Assault, or maybe Pouncing Charge. Slip between your foes, slashing as you go? Steel Wind.

Seriously....everything you could ever DREAM a finesse character doing, is easily crafted using Warblade, Swordsage, or both, from Tome of Battle. Not only does he do it, but he doesn't suck while doing it.

[SurlySeraph]

As Keld Denar said, the Tome of Battle makes it easy to make an effective finesse fighter - concentrate on Diamond Mind and Shadow Hand maneuvers. The Shadow Blade feat, which gives you DEX to damage, is a very good idea for a build like this.
If you don't want to use ToB, go with a Rogue or the Sneak Attack Fighter variant (trades bonus feats for sneak attack), take two-weapon fighting, and focus on getting lots of attacks. Or Swashbuckler/Rogue, as has been suggested. In any case, TWF with a good source of bonus damage is critical if you want to make an effective finesse fighter.
There's an INT-based finesse fighter build I've been working on that's more cute than practical, but I'll try to dig it out to post it here. It involves three levels in Swashbuckler to get INT to damage, a level or two in Monk (with the Carmendine Monk feat) to get INT to AC, a level each in the Invisible Blade and Duelist PrCs to get INT to AC twice more, a few Warblade levels, and then going into the Eternal Blade PrC to get INT to a few more things.

[Dacia Brabant]

A dip in Crusader would be a good idea too at least if you're using that high Dex for Combat Reflexes due to Thicket of Blades and Defensive Rebuke, and you can add on top of that all those fun tricks with a Spiked Chain and the right feat chains like trip, disarm, Stand Still, Knockback, etc. Just make sure to take the dip after 6+ levels in those other melee classes first so you can have a high enough Initiator Level to qualify for third level maneuvers.

[ericgrau]

I've never been very clever when it comes to D&D character creation, but I've decided (somewhat inspired by the Gamers 2 movie), to try and defy this habit of mine and make a fighter built around skill and critical hits rather than the "MRAH, SMASH!" type.

The plan is to have a human fighter, with Dex and Con as the main stats, and the feats I've come up with so far are: Dodge, Mobility, Improved Critical (scimitar), and power critical, as well as coughing up the cash for a Keen scimitar. The basic idea is for a 10th level character with 7 levels of fighter, and 3 levels or Rogue, in order to use Mobility to get into backstabbing positions . . . coupled with a lot of critical hits.

I've thought about also throwing in Improved Feint and Spring Attack. What do you guys think? Is this a decent build for what I have in mind?

D&D doesn't support this kind of fighter well, and I've found out the hard way. A dex focus with weapon finesse works well when you're forced to wear light armor, but why wear light armor? You must have an application for the better speed and skill checks, or you'll be sacrificing strength damage for nothing. Since dex is doing double duty, consider an elf in spite of the con penalty. If you can get a 30 foot speed race with a dex bonus and no con penalty, even better. Perhaps a goblin. You'll get size bonuses to AB and AC to boot, almost like having +4 dex.

Improved critical and keen don't stack. Keen adds less damage than other damage enchantments, so it's better to stick with the feat if anything, or get the scabbard of keen edges at high levels when it costs less than stacking another +1 on your weapon.

Rogue levels are a trap for finesse fighters. Their HP is too low to survive melee, their mid BAB kills some of the SA damage you thought you'd get and it sucks even harder when you can't SA. I'd go straight fighter for the feats or another martial class, perhaps with some ranger included for the skill points. Straight ranger might not be a bad idea. You even get longstrider to boost your speed. Maybe dip into barbarian for even more speed. Or all 3 to get everything you need. Or take a splatbook class designed for your style, like scout, swashbuckler, etc.

Next figure out which skills will help your theme. Check out the skill rules at www.d20srd.org or my sig ("Normal Rules") for DCs & other info. Only get enough to meet the DCs you need. Look at jump and tumble for starters. Only get balance, swim, escape artist, etc. if your DM makes challenges they apply to. If you have points leftover you can get some skillmonkey skills too.

Get boots of speed ASAP, or a reliable mage for haste. The speed boost (and corresponding jump boost), extra attack and combat bonuses are invaluable. There are rings and armor enchantments that further boost various skills if needed. But often you don't need it; figure out which DCs you want to meet first.

[Knaight]

More specifically on the feats: keen and improved critical don't both count, you use whichever is applicable. Keen if its the wrong weapon, probably improved critical otherwise.

I would take the blood in the water stance, its Tiger Claw, and focuses on making critical hits common and nasty. If I remember correctly.

[SurlySeraph]

One thing I forgot to mention: If you get decent Sneak Attack and have a 15-20 critical hit range (from a keen scimitar or such), get the Telling Blow feat. It deals your Sneak Attack damage when you get a critical hit.

[ChaosDefender24]

If you want to get really devoted to your crits, look into this wonderful PrC from the book of vile darkness called the Disciple of Dispater. With it, you can double your crit range - twice. And it stacks with improved crit/keen. Threatening a critical hit on a 9 or higher is nothing to laugh at.
Sadly, the feat Shadow Blade, which is the best way to get your damage up to speed if you're a mobile fighter, is incompatible with this strategy, because none of the shadow hand weapons have an 18-20 base threat range. You COULD do swashbuckler/fighter, though. Quite a bit of MAD now (some Str for power attack, Dex, Con, Int), but Int to Damage is the next best thing I can think of.

There's always lightning mace + aptitude weapon, but that's just stupid.

[Keld Denar]

IMO, Telling Blow is a trap. Its too chancey to be consistant. If I'm gonna get that close to something, I want my sneak attack dice, no buts about it. I'd rather move with tumble to get into position to attack ONCE with SA, than make a full attack and pray for a critical. There are other reasons to use TB, such as to SA something past 30' or SA something with concealment, but they are pretty circumstantial to warrent a dicey feat. Plus, unless you have Craven, getting a critical on a hit you already qualify for SA on does almost nothing to increase damage. Instead of doing 6d6, you do 7d6...woooo. Granted, with Craven its more like instead of 6d6+10, its 7d6+20, which IS a good jump in damage, but thats a function of Craven and not Telling Blow or critting in general.

[Eldariel]

Sadly, the feat Shadow Blade, which is the best way to get your damage up to speed if you're a mobile fighter, is incompatible with this strategy, because none of the shadow hand weapons have an 18-20 base threat range. You COULD do swashbuckler/fighter, though. Quite a bit of MAD now (some Str for power attack, Dex, Con, Int), but Int to Damage is the next best thing I can think of.

Champion of Corellon Larethian [RoTW] adds Dex to damage with a few weapons including Scimitars. Combined with Oversized TWF or Dervish, this works very well. Also, if you have Sneak Attack, Craven [CoR] works great with critical range weapons.

[ChaosDefender24]

Champion of Corellon Larethian [RoTW] adds Dex to damage with a few weapons including Scimitars. Combined with Oversized TWF or Dervish, this works very well. Also, if you have Sneak Attack, Craven [CoR] works great with critical range weapons.

I don't have RotW, but I'm assuming that you can't be evil to be a Champion.
And you gotta be quite evil to be a disciple of dispater :(

And if you don't do that trick, I'd really go with Shadow Blade and swordsage fun unless the Champion is realllllllllllllllllly good and mobile.

[Eldariel]

I don't have RotW, but I'm assuming that you can't be evil to be a Champion.
And you gotta be quite evil to be a disciple of dispater :(

Psh, roleplaying prerequisites. Just be Ex-one-or-the-other.

And if you don't do that trick, I'd really go with Shadow Blade and swordsage fun unless the Champion is realllllllllllllllllly good and mobile.

Swordsage is the best option no question. Too bad about the lack of 18-20/x2 weapons though, although I have the sneaking suspicion it's intentional.

[AslanCross]

I have to agree that a Swordsage/Rogue is the best way to do a fast finesse fighter. It's rather unfortunate that Shadow Blade doesn't work with any high-range crit weapons, but if you're a rogue AND a swordsage, you'd better know how to improvise. It's really easy to open up lots of potential high-damage situations with that build without relying on any single maneuver or class feature.

I'd also suggest using the Pathfinder rogue, which gets Rogue talents to offset the PHB Rogue's comatose levels.

[Crow]

Also, NEVER, EVER take an odd number of Fighter levels.

Unless it's "1".

[ChaosDefender24]

Wutevz, you still get 13-20 (I think) on a 19-20 with the help of Disciple, and that's good enough.

Especially if you go Kaorti.

[Renegade Paladin]

I present the solution to your problem. Also, as pointed out, Improved Critical and keen don't stack, though they should.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Speed/Mobility-based fighter, and I'm the first one to mention Scout? For shame.

Seriously, Scout, CAdv, gets bonus damage at half the rate of the Rogue, as well as an AC boost, every time he moves at least 10 feet.

[Draz74]

Factotum can also be an interesting dip for an intelligent Finesse Fighter archetype. Mix and match it according to taste with Warblade, Swordsage, Swashbuckler 3, and/or Rogue.

[derfenrirwolv]

Definitely avoid the fighter class. It simply doesn't do well, and whirlwind attack is completely useless.

[ericgrau]

He may need a lot of feats, depending on what he does. Really there are a lot of different classes that could work, or a mix depending on how much of each he needs for each thing he wants.

I'm not saying whirlwind attack is at all necessary for his character concept, but if there are 3 or more baddies around you then it does more damage than a full attack. That's because every attack is at full BAB, unlike a full attack where some of your attacks are likely to miss.

[Jeivar]

Definitely avoid the fighter class. It simply doesn't do well, and whirlwind attack is completely useless.

Well, there ARE all those juicy fighter bonus feats.

[Faleldir]

I'm not saying whirlwind attack is at all necessary for his character concept, but if there are 3 or more baddies around you then it does more damage than a full attack. That's because every attack is at full BAB, unlike a full attack where some of your attacks are likely to miss.

It does more total damage, but it's unlikely to kill anyone, which is what you usually want when you're surrounded. At least Mithral Tornado lets you move away afterward.