Acrobatic Character Build [3.5]

[Temotei]

What's a good way to go about creating an acrobat character?

So far, I've found the thief-acrobat quite fulfilling. I'm going to take that up.

Other than that, all I've got are the skillful classes (including ranger for the jump spell as well) and the monk (slow fall, but I don't want a monk).

We're going to be starting at ECL 6. Fey races are the only ones we're using.

Any help in making an acrobatic character would be great.

[Random NPC]

Acrobatic character that kills while he moves

Cloistered Cleric 1/Scout 3/Ranger X

Domains: Travel, Celerity, Knowledge. Trade Travel and Knowledge for the devotion feats. Go two weapon fighting just for the lulz

[AbyssKnight]

Battle Dancer (Dragon Magazine Compendium) is a great base class for an acrobat PC.

[subject42]

Battle Dancer (Dragon Magazine Compendium) is a great base class for an acrobat PC.

It's even better if it's a warforged.

[RandomLunatic]

Dervish (CWar) is a mobile fighter, although it is a pain to qualify for.

[Temotei]

All helpful. More acrobatics!

[Draz74]

Uncanny Trickster and Factotum seem like obvious must-haves. Three levels each.

[Dhavaer]

If you can use 3.0, there was a ninja prestige class in Oriental Adventures that gave +20 to Tumble, Jump and Balance by about level 7.

[Draz74]

Oh yeah, Thri-Kreen. Possibly the psionic version, so you're all ready for Up the Walls and Speed of Thought.

[Eldariel]

Swordsage with appropriate stances and maxed skills could be real good for this. They're master of mobile combat anyways. So...yeah. Other than that, straight Rogue going for Exemplar-dip to turbocharge skill mastery. Or Factotum; always Factotum when it's about skillz.

[ericgrau]

Jump, tumble, balance and climb. Escape artist if you have to deal with grappling. All but escape artist are keyed off movement, so you want a high movement speed too. Start with a medium sized race to get 30 feet. Barbarian dip for +10 feet. Ranger 4 + lesser rod of extend spell or boots of striding and springing for +10 feet. Later switch it for boots of speed for up to 10 rounds of haste per day. Slippers of spider climb are another option. You can get rings that boost climbing and jumping by up to +15, plus the slick armor enchantment for up to +15 to escape artist. There is a psionic psychoactive skin that gives you a +10 to tumble. The magic items that boost jumping don't stack with each other but they do stack with potions of jump. If your DM allows you could even get use magic device or dip 1 level of wizard and get a staff of quickened jump to avoid spending a round to get it. Maybe add quickened spider climb and so on to get a theme going. The staff could also be enchanted as your quarterstaff to fight with.

Ok, now what to do with all this mobility? First, check out the skill descriptions for ways to move even faster when using them, and the DCs in general. Next remember that they are all done as part of a move action, so you could even do 2-3 plus walking within the same move action. Now you can jump over pits, tumble past enemies, climb to hard to reach places. Basically you may reach ranged foes that are trying to hide in the back. You could set up flanks for sneak attacks, disarm bows, spell component pouches and holy symbols, be a big damage dealer, be a scout, grapple the fragile bastard and pin him so he can't speak either, etc., etc. Note all the disarm targets mentioned are easy to disarm, so you don't necessarily need a feat for this. Some form of invisibility may help too. That way you stay safe or you can grapple, pin and prevent speaking within the same full attack, so a caster couldn't even dimension door away. Or load up on sneak attacks against the low HP bastard. Next you deal grapple damage to him with armor spikes or levels in monk. Armor spikes also count as light weapons so you can make them your main weapon and use them even when not grappling. You may want to enchant them with ghost touch and get potions of see invisibility so you can take down the hard to reach incorporeal opponents while you're at it. After all your specialty is taking down strategic targets when you're this mobile.

[PinkysBrain]

Swordsage with appropriate stances and maxed skills could be real good for this.

This man speaks the truth ... there are many ways to get high checks, a couple of PrCs and skill tricks which allow you to use them to minor effect but only ToB grants you something really useful to do with them.

If you are going to spend a lot of resources on getting your checks high make sure you get some return on investment other than during special encounters the DM has to cook up just for you and your ridiculously high checks.

[Danin]

As mentioned earlier, the Ninja Spy from Oriental Adventures is THE class for an acrobat. It is 3.0, but it honestly translates perfectly to 3.5 with only changing the skill "pick pockets" into "sleight of hand". It requires 10 ranks in disguise and some other stuff, so you can't enter at 6th level, but for the win this class represents you can't go wrong.

Walking on water, slow fall, taking 10 on jump, balance, climb and tumble, getting +20 to each of them, hide in plain sight as long as you're within 10 feet of a shadow that isn't your own, poison use, jump checks not limited by your movement speed, alter self at will and dimension door 1/day, along with other goodies? And perfect saves ta boot? I'll throw my vote in for this guy.

[Flickerdart]

Amusingly enough, two Ninja Spies could hide in each other's shadows.

[Temotei]

As mentioned earlier, the Ninja Spy from Oriental Adventures is THE class for an acrobat. It is 3.0, but it honestly translates perfectly to 3.5 with only changing the skill "pick pockets" into "sleight of hand". It requires 10 ranks in disguise and some other stuff, so you can't enter at 6th level, but for the win this class represents you can't go wrong.

Walking on water, slow fall, taking 10 on jump, balance, climb and tumble, getting +20 to each of them, hide in plain sight as long as you're within 10 feet of a shadow that isn't your own, poison use, jump checks not limited by your movement speed, alter self at will and dimension door 1/day, along with other goodies? And perfect saves ta boot? I'll throw my vote in for this guy.

That seems the right class for this character. Combined with skill tricks and a dip into thief-acrobat, jumping, climbing, tumbling, and balancing will all be my domain. I'll probably stop at 5th level though.

Any more ideas are welcome.

[Soranar]

kobolds are great at this

they have a special feat (kobolds only) that helps your checks.

Movement 30 ft while being small helps too (especially escape artists checks with slight)

[Temotei]

kobolds are great at this

they have a special feat (kobolds only) that helps your checks.

Movement 30 ft while being small helps too (especially escape artists checks with slight)

What feat? Or what book?

[Soranar]

from races of the dragon

feat: kobold endurance

you get +4 to all Str checks and Con checks

[Temotei]

from races of the dragon

feat: kobold endurance

you get +4 to all Str checks and Con checks

Ah. That's different, though. With that, you get a bonus to Strength and Constitution checks, not Strength- and Constitution-based checks. Completely different. Unless you just summarized it here in a way that contradicts the feat.

Besides, I have to be fey.

Thanks for the thought though.

[AbyssKnight]

Agile Athlete (RotW) might help. Makes Climb and Jump Dex skills instead of Str skills.

[Temotei]

Agile Athlete (RotW) might help. Makes Climb and Jump Dex skills instead of Str skills.

It might indeed help. It's not exactly the best feat, but this character's not optimized in the least.

[AbyssKnight]

Blade Dancer (OA) actually gets a higher Acrobatics bonus than Ninja spy (+30 vs +20). But Ninja Spy's Acrobatics adds to Climb as well. Blade Dancer also gets Fast Movement (Ninja Spy gets HiPS though).

I know you said you didn't want to be a Monk, but since Thief Acrobat (and Ninja Spy) requires Evasion, and Blade Dancer must be Lawful, Monk really does make sense.

Monk 4/Duskblade 1/Thief Acrobat 5/Blade Dancer 10
100' speed; slow fall 50'; +30 Balance, Jump, and Tumble; fast acrobatics; +17 BAB; +10/+15/+10 base saves; free magic sword

Unfortunately, Battle Dancer can't go into Ninja Spy (BD is Chaotic, NS is non-Chaotic non-Good).

Rogue 4/Swashbuckler 3/Thief Acrobat 5/Ninja Spy 8 (W/Daring Outlaw)
slow fall 50'; +20 Balance, Climb, Jump, and Tumble; fast acrobatics; +15 BAB; +11/+16/+9 base saves; HiPS; +7d6 SA

[Draz74]

Blade Dancer must be Lawful

BD is Chaotic

You lost me. Or are Blade Dancer and Battle Dancer two separate PrCs that you're talking about?

[AbyssKnight]

Yes, they are separate.

Blade Dancer is a PrC from Oriental Adventures, must be Lawful.

Battle Dancer is a base class from Dragon Compendium, must be Chaotic.

If you think that's confusing, there are both a base class (Compendium) and PrC (CompScoundrel) named Mountebank. You could play a Mountebank/ Mountebank.

Go WotC!

[Temotei]

Blade dancer might work as well, but I'm not sure of how to get arcane spellcasting and the base attack bonus required, since the duskblade is banned (for some reason). I'd also have to wait a bit longer for that class and I'd have to be lawful (not really a setback).

I could wait another level before getting the class, however.

So many options, so little time.

[Kosjsjach]

Probably not worth it in the long run, but the Warlock least invocation Leaps and Bounds gives +6 unnamed bonus to Balance, Jump and Tumble checks.

I've always kinda wanted to run a gestalt warlock game; there are quite a few invocations that are poor (or sub-optimal) for a straight warlock, but would be great when added to another class.

[sofawall]

You could play a Mountebank/ Mountebank.

Or a Beguiler Beguiler.

Go WotC!

To be fair, one is made by Paizo.

[Jera]

I've always been a big fan of the Harrier class from the Iron Heroes setting. their third level class ability is perfect for a acrobatic/highly mobile character.

Though if you plan do just dip into the class I'm not sure how well it would work meshing two different base classes.

Mobile Assault: The 3rd-level and higher harrier fights
best while on the move. Your enemies have trouble defending
themselves as you come at them from an unexpected angle or
with the added momentum of your movement. When you use a
move action to move and then a standard action to attack, you
gain a bonus to your attack equal to the number of squares
you moved. This bonus lasts until the start of your next action.
Note that your mobile assault bonus equals the number of
squares you actually move, not the amount of movement you
spend. For example, if you move across two squares of difficult
terrain, you would spend four squares of movement and
gain a +2 bonus on your attack.

[AbyssKnight]

Hmmm.....thinking along the lines of being Fey and Chaotic (or at least non Lawful).

Battle Dancer 5/Warlock 2/Swashbuckler 3/Dervish 10
55' speed; +6 Balance, Jump, and Tumble (Leaps and Bounds); climb speed 20 (Spiderwalk); +19 BAB; +7/+13/+12 base saves

The skill bonus isn't as high, but you can still keep them maxed out and be extremely acrobatic.

[AbyssKnight]

To be fair, one is made by Paizo.

Under license from WotC.

But, I understand what you're saying.