Ghost-Faced Killer

[soir8]

Hey there,

I've been playing a GFK (Complete Adventurer pg52) for a few months, and it's been fun, especially when I got the Frightful Cleave ability :D

But at times I feel a bit left behind by the rest of the party, who are all more experienced gamers than me. I'm currently scout5/fighter2/GFK10. Can anyone twll me a better build for a GFK?

Thanks for any help :)

[Mushroom Ninja]

Hey there,

I've been playing a GFK (Complete Adventurer pg52) for a few months, and it's been fun, especially when I got the Frightful Cleave ability :D

But at times I feel a bit left behind by the rest of the party, who are all more experienced gamers than me. I'm currently scout5/fighter2/GFK10. Can anyone twll me a better build for a GFK?

Thanks for any help :)

What classes are the rest of the party?

[soir8]

Can't remember exact builds, but I think they were 2 warblades, a cleric/bone knight, a shifter, I think a spellsword, a frenzied berserker and a swashbuckler/dervish/ninja.

[AslanCross]

Does this mean you're going to be rebuilt completely? Since ToB is allowed, you could take Swordsage and take Exotic Weapon Proficiency for Spiked Chain, then Power Attack. It's easy enough to qualify for GFK if you really want that. Assassin's Stance and Shadow Hand's multiple stealth maneuvers will help your Sudden Strike.

[Human Paragon 3]

Hexblade works great into GBK. You can lay on several major debuffs before unleashing the insta-kill so they fail their save and die.

Hex Blade/Corrupt Avenger (Heroes of Horror)/Ghost Face Killer is an interesting build, too if you can get around the corruption requirement. Focus on fear effects, your curse, and stealth for optimal frighteningness.

You may also want to look at Dread Commando for sudden strike, skills, an initiative boost, total mitigation of armor check penalties and the ability to hide and run.

A level of shadowdancer nabs you hide in plain sight.

You're already level 17, so you have plenty of room to play.

How about:

Hexblade 7/Dread Commando 5/Shadowdancer 1/Ghost Face Killer 4

With this build you can fully debuff them with spells and curses from range, charge and sudden strike them still hiding for a killing blow.

If you'd rather keep 10 levels of GFK, then Hexblade 7/Ghost Face Killer 10 will work great with a reach weapon, especially Spiked Chain.

[soir8]

Thanks for the advice, some interesting stuff here :) haven't had a good look at heroes of horror yet, sounds good. Unfortunately I can't take levels in Shadowdancer for the hide in plain sight ability; it was already suggested to me by the DM, but as I pointed out to him, my caracter is completely blind and therefore can't see shadows... he wouldn't know where to hide :D

[HailDiscordia]

Our current campaign also has a GFK in the party, and I think they sort of feel the same way as you about the class. I think that they got into the class by going Rogue2/Ranger2/Fighter2, which got them a pretty good mix of abilities and feats. The party is not all that optimized so the GFK certainly has his moments to shine, but is nothing all that great. The Frightful Cleave has only worked a few times, though the effect of panicking onlookers has proven pretty handy. The character went up to GFK 3 and then decided to take some more Fighter and Rogue instead of finishing up with it.

I do think that it is a real cool class though.

[Bonzai]

I went Ninja/Ghost Faced Killer once briefly. It focused on mobility and spring attacking. I kind of see them as axillary damage, and scouting.

[soir8]

Our current campaign also has a GFK in the party, and I think they sort of feel the same way as you about the class. I think that they got into the class by going Rogue2/Ranger2/Fighter2, which got them a pretty good mix of abilities and feats. The party is not all that optimized so the GFK certainly has his moments to shine, but is nothing all that great. The Frightful Cleave has only worked a few times, though the effect of panicking onlookers has proven pretty handy. The character went up to GFK 3 and then decided to take some more Fighter and Rogue instead of finishing up with it.

I do think that it is a real cool class though.

I've only had one chance to use Frightful Cleave since I got it. We were fighting a load of lvl15 dwarven defenders and an evil caster and 2 fireballs went off. Despite having a reflex modifier of 20, I still somehow managed to fail both reflex saves, and despite having fort 20 aswell I also somehow failed the save against massive damage. Later in the fight, the cleric used that spell that temporarilly ressurects someone (can't remember what it's called) and my character got up right next to the group of dwarven defenders, obliterated 2 of them with Frightful Cleave, and was immediately killed again by the rest. It was worth it.

Especially when I was reincarnated as a Goliath

[Rixx]

Spoiler

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I'm sure I'm like the 9001st person to make this joke, but I wanted to anyway.

[Pluto]

Thanks for the advice, some interesting stuff here :) haven't had a good look at heroes of horror yet, sounds good. Unfortunately I can't take levels in Shadowdancer for the hide in plain sight ability; it was already suggested to me by the DM, but as I pointed out to him, my caracter is completely blind and therefore can't see shadows... he wouldn't know where to hide :D

Corrupt Avenger is on the WotC page as a promotional excerpt for HoH.

I don't remember the details of GFK and I'm not going to pass judgement on CA without that for context, but there it is.

[Optimystik]

I'm sure I'm like the 9001st person to make this joke, but I wanted to anyway.

Don't feel ashamed, it was the very first thing I thought of when I got to that part of CAdv as well.

[AslanCross]

Don't feel ashamed, it was the very first thing I thought of when I got to that part of CAdv as well.

I didn't get it at first, but now I'm wondering if that was intentional.