[3.5] Help with NPC build

[Ahab]

I'm looking to revive an old character from my forum roleplaying days and insert him into my campaign. My characters will recognize him pretty quickly, as his personality and fighting style are quite memorable to them. However, I cannot for the life of me figure out a proper class build for him.

Here's the lowdown on the character, whose name is Kame:
- The character is human, and chaotic aligned.
- He's level 18... Unless you suggest a level or two higher for class capability purposes.
- Kame must start out with a level or two of rogue- this is backstory related.
- His fighting style involves a lot of jumping, spinning, and acrobatics in general; the way he moves resembles a dance.
- The character dual-wields punching-daggers (katars).
- He has very high dexterity, and pretty good charisma. However, his wisdom score is low. Decent constitution, strength, and intelligence.

So what would you suggest for his class progression to level eighteen? I'd also appreciate any feat suggestions. All WotC books/Dragon articles are allowed, but no third-party material, please.

[Temotei]

Originally posted by Ahab
His fighting style involves a lot of jumping, spinning, and acrobatics in general; the way he moves resembles a dance.

Jumping, spinning, and acrobatics sounds like a Swashbuckler to me. They get Acrobatic Charge at 7th level, which allows the Swashbuckler to charge over difficult terrain (although sometimes requiring a jump or tumble check). They're also allowed to take 10 on acrobatic skills at 11th level...too bad they have so many useless levels in between 3 and...20. Dance-movements sound like the Dervish class, but I don't know where that's from.

I really recommend the Two-weapon Fighting tree of feats. They might help.

Complete Warrior has a lot of feats you may want to look into, and Complete Scoundrel has skill tricks. Also in Complete Scoundrel, there's a feat called Daring Outlaw for Swashbuckler/Rogue people. Requirements are 3 levels of rogue and 2 levels of swashbuckler. It lets your swashbuckler levels stack with your rogue levels to determine sneak attack damage, and for bonuses from Grace and the Dodge class features. If you're thinking more along the lines of fighter, you could get Daring Warrior, which lets your Fighter and Swashbuckler levels stack for Grace and Dodge bonuses, and also for qualification for feats.

[Jayngfet]

Bard, with perform sing or oratory you get to use clas abilities without putting down the blades, and benefit from charisma.

[Thespianus]

Sounds to me like a Rogue/Swashbuckler/Dervish, maybe with two levels of Fighter to get the bonus feats so you can get into the Dervish PRC.

Dodge, Mobility, Combat Expertise and Weapon Focus("a slashing weapon")... But that doesn't work very nicely with the punching daggers (they're piercing, right?).

(If you're the DM, you could houserule the Dervish class to use Weapon Focus(slashing OR piercing weapon) without breaking the universe ;)

Go Rogue 3, Fighter 2, Swashbuckler 4, Dervish 9 and you're at Level 18 with a Dancing Damage-Dealing Dervish'o'Death. ;) 4D6 worth of Sneak Attack will come in handy when you bring the meat-mincer into play. Full attacks while moving ones full move leaves lots of times / round when the flanking full attacks will benefit from the 4D6 extra sneak attack damage.

For level 19, she'll get the Dervish capstone "A thousand cuts" and will really start cutting up the meat.

You could go Rogue 3, Fighter 2, Swashbuckler 3, Dervish 10 to get the capstone on level 18, by sacrificing one 1D6 worth of sneak attack damage. Might be cool too.

[TheCountAlucard]

I recommend Dervish, and by proxy, Scout (Complete Adventurer) if you can justify it. Away from books at the moment, but doesn't Complete Scoundrel have a feat to stack Scout and Rogue levels?

Anyway, getting into Dervish is the problem, unless you're willing to take a flaw or two. It's almost too feat-intensive to be worth it... almost.

she'll

The character's a dude, by the way.

[Wings of Peace]

A single dip in Factotum combined combined with the Able Learner feat will let you treat all skills as class skills which should make your life pretty easy skill wise.

[Eldariel]

Hm. Can't the Rogue-part be dealt with through flavour? I'd imagine as long as he's got a good array of Rogue-skills and such, the players can't tell the difference anyways.

Bard-base Dervish could be interesting; Snowflake Wardance + Inspire Courage/Dragonfire Inspiration + Dervish Dance gives you more Dance than you can shake a stick at and makes it nicely Cha-focused (though it can benefit of a decent Dex too).


Of course, even better would probably be a Bard-base Warblade (though a pity he cannot access Desert Wind for Desert Tempest). That gets you Song of the White Raven to progress Inspire Courage through the Warblade levels and a good bunch of maneuvers to kick ass. A small Swordsage-dip wouldn't hurt too much while offering easier access to Shadow Blade and Assassin's Stance.

[Adumbration]

Along with other suggestions, I'd propose that you try to get some levels in Tempest to the build. Page 81 of Complete Adventurer, improves two-weapon fighting quite nicely.

[Thespianus]

I recommend Dervish, and by proxy, Scout (Complete Adventurer) if you can justify it. Away from books at the moment, but doesn't Complete Scoundrel have a feat to stack Scout and Rogue levels?

Anyway, getting into Dervish is the problem, unless you're willing to take a flaw or two. It's almost too feat-intensive to be worth it... almost.

You need 4 feats at level 8, 5 if you include TWF, and with two levels of Fighter, and a Human, you get 6 feat slots until level 7, with Weapon Finesse from Swashbuckler for free. So it's not impossible, just a bit sucky. :)

The Dervish seems like a lot of fun, though.

[jiriku]

Rogue 2/fighter 4/dervish 10/tempest 2 would get you to 18. Feat requirements are stiff, though. You could vary it a little as needed to accomodate the feats. Such a character will be highly mobile, make piles of attacks with solid accuracy, and heck, even if bought cross-class, by level 18 your jump and tumble modifiers would be substiantial.

[Thespianus]

Rogue 2/fighter 4/dervish 10/tempest 2 would get you to 18. Feat requirements are stiff, though.

And he'd lose out on Sneak Attack damage, which I think is very important for any TWF build.

But yes, it would work too, especially with the Craven feat.