Stealth based PrC's

[RandomAction]

Greetings everyone. I am playing a character who is a stealth-gish. I have looked over the Assassin PrC, though I do like the sneak attack progression it offers, I dis-like the spell selection.
I am hoping that you, Ladies and Gentlemen, of the OoTS community would help me in finding the right PrC for my character. I have access to all 3.5 books and it just takes to much time to search through them all.

The only requirements are:

1.> Character is stealth focused with a one-hit one-kill melee concept.

2.> No PrC with a racial requirement. I have chosen my race and am not interested in changing it

3.> Character is evil alignment.

Other than that have fun......

[jiriku]

Unseen Seer is popular, with good reason. Arcane Trickster less so, but still usable.

[Keld Denar]

Yea, an Unseen Seer progresses wizard casting, the best casting. Pick up Hunter's Eye with it's Expanded Learning feature to amp up your damage and then attack from the cover of invisibility with an augemented Orb of Fire or such. Thats a lot of d6s. As a wizard, you can also teleport in, teleport out, fly, divine the locations and protections of your foe, dispel his protections, bypass or eliminate barriers that block your access to him, Dominate his guards to work for you, and do any number of badass things that help you play the "assassin" style character.

Rogue1/Wizard4/USS10/AT5 is a typical build. Alternatively, swap Rogue for Spellthief and take Master Spellthief.

[Ilmryn]

The Black Flame Zealot from Complete Divine may be to your liking. It has a Death Attack very similar to that of the Assassin, but instead of assasin spells, you get divine casting progression(half) and the abilty to set your weapons on fire(at lvl7).

The Ghost-Faced Killer from CAdv is an assassin-type with invisibilty powers, and it has the ability to scare your enemy to death(literally). It is however, more combat-focused than the typical stealth/skill monkey character. The downside of this is that is uses Sudden Strike instead of Sneak Attack, so you don't get bonus damage when flanking.

[AmberVael]

2.> No PrC with a racial requirement. I have chosen my race and am not interested in changing it

I can certainly understand this, and have no intention of pressing you on the topic of changing your race...
That said, it would be helpful to know what race you are.

3.> Character is evil alignment.

Any evil, or do you have the whole alignment picked out?

[RandomAction]

To help clear things up for ease:

I am playing as a Lawful Evil Rogue/Duskblade using my favorite race, the Half-drow. *Dodges flames*

He focuses on Str based melee damage augmented by the Duskblade's channeling ability and flanking to trigger Sneak Attack.

I do not know how high in levels the game will go (or if he will survive) and I understand that most people think multi-classing before 13th level as a Duskblade is a bad idea. The full-attack channel ability is great, but I am focusing on a single hit and fade away strategy for this character.

[nedz]

Drow Paragon perhaps ?
It might be useful ?

[Person_Man]

Factotum 20.

Factotum 3/Anything 2/Chameleon 10

Binder 1/Caster X/Anima Mage X. Binder has several stealth related vestiges, and can get Death Attack eventually, and your caster side will only lose one level.

Skill Monkey 1/Incarnate 4/Totemist 2/Necrocarnate X. Can easily get large bonuses to Hide and Move Silently, and all the various Incarnum tricks. And after you kill your target, you can suck his soul energy out of him for extra essentia and then raise him as a Incarnum Zombie to do your bidding.

[hamishspence]

I am playing as a Lawful Evil Rogue/Duskblade using my favorite race, the Half-drow.

Half-drow as per Races of Faerun (with darkvision) or as per Drow of the Underdark (without darkvision)?

Personally I'd say DotW removing darkvision was a mistake.

[Jarveiyan]

Half-drow as per Races of Faerun (with darkvision) or as per Drow of the Underdark (without darkvision)?

Personally I'd say DotW removing darkvision was a mistake.

I agree wholeheartedly.

[Curmudgeon]

Personally I'd say DotW removing darkvision was a mistake.

Since they clearly labeled it as an intended change, the authors disagree. From Drow of the Underdark, page 220:

One piece of errata from Races of Faerûn is that half-drow do not have darkvision. Rather, they have only the low-light vision typical of half-elves.

According to WotC's update rule, if you use that book you must use all its updates.

[hamishspence]

Given that they didn't actually publish an errata for Races of Faerun that changed half-drow (and all half-drow in books after RoF have had darkvision) it's only Drow of the Underdark that suggests they shouldn't have it.

Not just that, but in the novels- they have darkvision.

[Curmudgeon]

Given that they didn't actually publish an errata for Races of Faerun that changed half-drow (and all half-drow in books after RoF have had darkvision) it's only Drow of the Underdark that suggests they shouldn't have it.

Not just that, but in the novels- they have darkvision.

The novels aren't RAW. I'm just going by WotC's rules here. If your campaign uses no part of Drow of the Underdark, half-drow have darkvision. If anybody uses something from DotU then half-drow have low-light vision instead.

[hamishspence]

Or, you can use all parts of DoTU except that one paragraph, on the grounds that it's easier than restatting all the existing half-drow splatbook characters.

If you think WotC's second version of something (like the half-drow) was a mistake- you don't have to make your players use it.

[Keld Denar]

Unless a smart DM rules otherwise. Its not a very tough case to argue. You can rule RAW all you want, but most people don't even use most of it.

You are right on RAW, but yea, its kinda dumb...

[hamishspence]

They do provide a way of getting that darkvision back- but it comes with drow light sensitivity, and is a regional feat (so must be taken at first level).

Maybe they thought half-drow overshadowed half-elves by virtue of having darkvision?

Seems a bit excessive to me though.

[Nidogg]

Well not stealth based of such but, heres a fun concept....
The Mounteback from Complete scoundrel. You can have an alter ego- a second personality with alter self to this at wil... Use that to change into a gaurd and disguise your self in, the class also gives usess of a dimention door Spell like which gives your rouge one of the caster's get out of trap free cards.

[Curmudgeon]

Maybe they thought half-drow overshadowed half-elves by virtue of having darkvision?

I think that's probably it. Half-Elf and Half-Drow are supposed to be matched in power.

[Optimystik]

For a one-hit kill, it's hard to beat Spellwarp Sniper. Be a Xeph for the Dex bonus and psionic-ness, and throw on the Psionic Shot line for an extra +2d6 - +4d6 untyped very early in your career.

You also get Darkvision and a speed boost if you need to get out of dodge in a hurry. Best of all - the Xeph speed boost is a competence bonus, which means it stacks with Expeditious Retreat/Haste (enhancement bonus.) 90 feet in one round, 3/day isn't too shabby I'd say.

[Fax Celestis]

Why PrC? Go Totemist and use soulmelds like Blink Shirt, Phase Cloak, and Darkmantle Cloak.

[RandomAction]

To start with, standard half-drow do begin with low-light. DotU updated the racial info, however taking the Drow Legacy feat on the same page, nets you both low light and darkvision. Not counting the spell-like abilities, which opens up a great feat Gift of the Spider Queen, it grants various other spell-like abilities (Mirror Image for instance) that can be used as a immediate action.

Drow paragon is an idea I didn't think about. Looked into it, need to ask DM if it works with duskblade or just wizard. Just wizard, get low ASF armor, means I could dip and focus the paragon on that. This would hurt BAB a little, but would add some tasty spells to channel.

Factotum is an interesting class. I have looked it over and I sadly lack the Int mod to pull it off. For taking Binder class levels, I have that book and no thanks just don't like it enough. Incarnum has a few soulmelds I can find usefull, but I am trying to avoid making too many dips and feeling like a micro pun-pun.

Complete Scoundrel made me pause as I considered becoming a ray specialist and knowing that a low BAB sort-of makes up for having to make touch attacks.

Unseen Seer is very tempting. The low HD of the class seems to go against my melee desires. The non-divination CL hit makes me frown a little. Abjurant Champion comes to mind at this point. It would be effective to mix the two PrCs.

[Akal Saris]

To answer the OP, the Dread Fang of Lolth from Drow of the Underdark seems custom-made for your character. It's a ftr/rogue type PrC for evil drow and half-drow, and quite nice as such PrCs go.

[Hague]

I like the Nightsong Infiltrator, assuming you didn't already pick up levels of Rogue. If you did, simply use one of the ACF's that replace trapfinding with something else, then you get Trapfinding again when you pick up Nightsong Infiltrator. The nice part is that this class combined with the Infiltration, Cunning Ambush and Improved Cunning Ambush teamwork benefits from PHII and DMGII will allow your whole team to be damned sneaky. Improved Cunning Ambush allows you to get a full round's worth of actions on a surprise round.

[RandomAction]

Nice for the team benefits, but I work my 'assassinations' solo. Hence the reason I am using swift abilities to set up flanking/invisibility strikes.

I will look into the Dread Fang of Lloth.

Please keep it coming in, this is really helping me narrow my selections down. Was at near 70+ different possibilities but now down to under 10.