[3.5]Sneaky Gishes

[CockroachTeaParty]

Howdy my beloved playgrounders. I've a question to ask of your collective, amorphous, gibbering being:

I'm interested in submitting a character for a stealth and theft-based PBP game, set in Eberron, starting ECL 6th, with access to just about everything but Magic of Incarnum.

I'd like to make a character that has both some skill at stealth, as well as the ability to combine spells with swords. In short, I need a sneaky gish.

I'm not too learned in the art of gishcraft. I'm the sort of person to either slap together a Duskblade and call it a day, or figure out a way to cram Abjurant Champion in a build and hope for the best.

So, what would be some good sneaky gish builds? I'm open to just about anything: arcane or divine magic, psionics, tome of battle, perhaps even shadow magic or pact magic. I'd favor spells or powers over maneuvers, but I'm flexible. Go nuts!

Oh, and it's 32 point buy, with a +1 LA cap max for races, if that helps at all.

Anyone have any good ideas? I'd appreciate your thoughts. I'll even mail you some pizza rolls if you respond.

[Flickerdart]

There are the Arcane Trickster and Unseen Seer prestige classes, could give those a shot. They advance Sneak Attack and spellcasting.

[CockroachTeaParty]

Wow, that was fast. *begins stuffing pizza rolls into an envelope.*

[Ernir]

Psssht: Of the two, Unseen Seer is much better.

But I can almost promise you that this way, the vast majority of your ability to hit and damage things is going to come from your spells, not your BAB or Sneak Attack.

[SurlySeraph]

Ruby Knight Vindicator from the ToB can do this, but is best at overt combat.

A Swordsage with lots of Shadow Hand is an easy way to make a stealthy and gish-like character (even if it can't technically cast spells).

Arcane Trickster and Unseen Seer are probably the way to go if you want to actually cast. Take plenty of ray spells so you can apply Sneak Attack with them, and get various Sneak Attack improvements for massive damage and/or crippling capabilities.

Just pushing a combination I love to use here: Chill Touch + Metamagic School Focus + Fell Drain. For a second-level spell slot, you get to make a number of touch attacks up to your CL, each of which does 1d6 negative energy, a chance of 1 strength damage, and a guaranteed negative level. Add in Sneak Attack and you're really hurting your enemies each round.

I'm rather partial to Duergar with the Magic in the Blood feat (lets them use their racial Invisibility and Enlarge SLAs 3/day), but objectively speaking they're not better gishes than other races, what with the level adjustment. Humans, elves, or halflings do it better.

[CockroachTeaParty]

Hmm... all interesting options. I'm considering just slapping together a Shadow Hand focused swordsage and calling it a day, but I'm wondering if I can make something more... complex than that.

Ruby Knight Vindicator's an interesting option, though it would have to be re-flavored for Eberron. I could lend a little divine magic support to the party, which is a role I'm sure will be rather difficult to fill.

As far as level adjustment is concerned, I could probably slap the Dark template on just about any class and automatically make it more stealthy, but that's kind of cheesy. Also, a Whisper Gnome would be stupidly useful for purposes of this character as well, but again, I hesitate due to the borderline cheese of the race...

[Temotei]

Anyone have any good ideas? I'd appreciate your thoughts. I'll even mail you some pizza rolls if you respond.

I'm allergic to mozzarella cheese.

[ex cathedra]

I would suggest a Whisper Gnome Beguiler / Swiftblade / Abjurant Champion, for a sneaky arcane gish.

[SurlySeraph]

As far as level adjustment is concerned, I could probably slap the Dark template on just about any class and automatically make it more stealthy, but that's kind of cheesy. Also, a Whisper Gnome would be stupidly useful for purposes of this character as well, but again, I hesitate due to the borderline cheese of the race...

Dark Whisper Gnome. You know you want to. Give in to the dark side.

[nekomata2]

There's a guide for this.

Of note is to use the Unseen Seer to learn the Hunter's Eye spell from the ranger list to get more sneak attack.

[Pluto]

You can't go wrong with Rogue/Wizard/Unseen Seer (CM).
R1/W4/US10 casts like a 14th level wizard, tosses 5d6 sneak attack with each attack and has around 6+Int skills/level. And its familiar is godly.
Add the Practiced Spellcaster feat (CAr) to keep your non-Divination spells at the appropriate CL.

edit:
Or just go Beguiler (PHB2). Actually, I recommend that.
But get a familiar (there's a feat for it in Complete Arcane). Because skillmonkey familiars are the bee's knees.

[Ogremindes]

I'm allergic to mozzarella cheese.

Since when do pizza rolls have honest-to-goodness cheese in 'em?

[dangerprawn]

I vote no Dark Whisper Gnomes.

---

I see two considerations here.

1) Basic elements of sneakiness and gish-hood
2) Area of specialization

---

For the first I'm referring to the basic elements of being sneaky. You'd want at least one class that has access to the Stealth skills - Hide and Move Silently. These are, at the absolute minimum, the skills you need as class skills.

For the gish aspect you need some kind of casting. Choosing which caster class is really dependent on the second consideration, because depending on what you want your focus to be on there are better or worse casting classes for that.

So to start with the last thing first, what kind of sneaky gish do you want to be? A melee sneak attack monster? A ranged sniper? A battlefield control sneaky controller?

Depending on what you decide to be your focus, here are some classes that would work with the casting side:
- Wizard (by default)
- Beguiler
- Psion (though I'm not familiar with them, I hear they're pretty good...at doing...stuff)
- Warlock / Dragonfire Adept (treat your invocations as once per day 24 hour buffs)

[Draz74]

I vote for the classic Evil Gray Elf Build: Rogue 2/Swashbuckler 3/Assassin 1.

(Eventually: Rogue 2/Swashbuckler 3/Assassin 5/Bladesinger 10.)

It's not as magic-heavy as most Gishes, since its casting comes from Assassin. But Bladesinger is a "Gish" class (albeit a crappy one, outside of this particular build). And the fluff is fun: a classic magic-hurling elven swashbuckler, only he happens to (necessarily) be Evil. Also, did I mention how it adds Intelligence to just about everything?

... although I guess nowadays you could actually do almost the same thing by being a straight Factotum. Hmmm. Well, at least the Bladesinger build ends up with +17 or +18 BAB.

[CockroachTeaParty]

Hmm, choices, choices. Also, hi dangerprawn!

*belch*

I'd like to avoid beguiler, if at all possible. I've played one too many of them (it's a great class, but I'm looking for something fresh).

Ho hum. I'll have to do some digging. I was thinking of being primarily a threat in melee, using spells to improve my combat ability as well as serving as a utility belt for general problem solving, etc. I suppose grabbing some items, perhaps using UMD, is certainly an option.

I'm tossing around some ideas... perhaps a Darguun ex-pat goblin swordsage would be worth a few laughs. Or a changeling factotum... The Recaster from Races of Eberron is also an intriguing option for some manner of changeling character.

Would a spellthief be a decent option, I wonder? Kind of a niche class, but they are sneaky, and they do cast spells...

[Vizzerdrix]

Don't get the Dark template! Grab the shadow walker template out of UE instead, and later when you have the money buy an umbral collar and get the Dark template that way.

[ZeroNumerous]

Spellthief lets you use Master Spellthief from Complete Scoundrel to determine the levels of spells you can steal with your Caster Level instead of your Spellthief Level. A Master Spellthief 1/Wizard 4/Unseen Seer 10/Abjurant Champion 5 gives you fairly acceptable BAB(+14), 19/20 spellcasting and Sneak Attack 5d6. It also counts as CL 20 for all spells and lets you wear light armor without stacking costly -ASF effects.

[Draz74]

Ho hum. I'll have to do some digging. I was thinking of being primarily a threat in melee, using spells to improve my combat ability

That does sound like the Evil Elf build ...

[mabriss lethe]

6th level

Changeling swordsage (shadowhand) 5/Warshaper 1

This might be an interesting build....

-pros: opportunities for lots of attacks, just spend several rounds growing the natural attacks you want out of combat, then wear a heavy cloak.

-Always has something to do. The character can teleport, debuff, sneak attack, and can deal significant damage on a standard action on the rounds when he sets himself up.

-Once he's in position, he can wail on his foes with claws, bites, tentacles, slams, tail attacks...etc.

the build is a little light on the gishyness, but you're a mutable abomination loaded with "spell" effects courtesy of swordsage.

*a necklace of natural attacks is your friend.

[JeminiZero]

Consider Divine Magic. Druids and Spirit Shaman get 4 skill points per level and don't have much to put it in. Combine with 14 int human, able learner, and a splash in a sneaky class and you can keep a couple of sneaky skills up. The classic example of this is 1 Ninja / X Druid. Reasonable skills, Able to cast Druid spells, and able to tranform into a bear that benefits from Wis bonus to AC and maul your enemies.

If you want something with more arcane-like spells, then take a look at Archivist. Domains grant you access to most (although admittedly not all) of the really nice stuff. And Divine Power/Cleric Buffs makes your gish passable in combat. Since you'll be putting skillpoints into sneaky stuff, you won't have enough to keep your Dark Knowledge maxed out. Therefore, PrC out as quickly as possible.

E.g. I once used Jack the Trap Monkey. His build was 1 Beguiler (Precocious Apprentice) / 3 Archivist / X Geomancer. He also had Dark template bought off at ECL 4 and Necropolitan applied, putting him 6k xp behind. At ECL 6, that puts you at level 4 and 1k xp to level 5. If you just have the Dark Template, that puts you at level 5 and 3k XP to level 6.

[MichielHagen]

Without looking at the other posts, i recently build this:

Wizard 2 / Human Paragon 3 / Warblade 2 / Abjurant Champion 5

With high INT, human's bonus skill, human Paragon's class skills and able learner (Races of Destiny), you can have a lot of skills maximized. Making you a skillfull gish.

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

Ask, and you shall receive.

[Totally Guy]

What about a charismatic Ranger that goes into Suel Arcanamach?

Not the most optimal but is fairly simple to do. He'll have a good skill list, a good choice of spells and a decent Base Attack Bonus.

[dobu]

hm. Spellthief 1/Wizard 5/Daggerspell Mage 10/Unseen Seer 4

It loses 2 casterlevel though. Your HP will be damn low, but with your casting you should not get hit. Get Hunter's eye (PH2) from unseen seer and persist it. and get Master Spellthief.

Spellthief 1/Wizard5/Unseen Seer 10/Divine Oracle 2/Loremaster 2

this is also an Option.. for you, Focusing on the Divination aspect.

[HCL]

What about the Illumian Racial prestige class? Loredelver? Its pretty good. Trapfinding class X/Diviner5/Loredelver

not sure what sigils you might want.

[Zovc]

Beguiler//Duskblade gestalt all the way!

If you're not playing gestalt... hrm...

[Person_Man]

Consider a strait Bard:

1) Excellent Skills, including Hide, Move Silently, Tumble, Disguise, Bluff, Sleight of Hand, and UMD.
2) Bardic music gives you access to Doomspeak, Snowflake Wardance, Crystal Echoblade (Magic Item Compendium), and to all sorts of other crazy inspire courage combos.
3) Plenty of useful spells, including Glibness, Silence, Invisibility, Shatter, and plenty of buff spells.
4) As a core class that does not multi-class or go into prestige class build, you will be less subject to accusations of cheese and/or Rule 0 nerfs. Contrast this with a Wizard/Warblade/Swiftblade/Whatever, who will constantly be told that their buffs/maneuvers/special abilities are "too powerful."

[Myrmex]

I would go with a small race, and use shrink person to become tiny. Massive hide bonuses.

[CockroachTeaParty]

I've actually consider bard... Could be useful for talking one's way out of trouble should we get caught. Still, historically, whenever I've made a bard for a game, the game has died before it even began, leading me to believe the class might be somehow cursed.

[Myrmex]

Bards are also noisy. Half your class features won't work when you're sneaking.