Adept of Darkness

[Person_Man]

The Drow of the Underdark book has some interesting feats in it geared directly to Drow. Some of these feats require that you be able to cast Darkness as a spell-like ability.

Invocations are a spell-like ability. Thus, one level of Dragonfire Adept or Warlock opens up access to a group of highly useful feats which synergize amazingly well with many other builds, without having to pay the +2 LA for being a Drow.

An Invocation can be cast an infinite number of times per day, and Darkness lasts for 10 minutes per level. Thus its quite reasonable for an Adept of Darkness to have these effects on all the time, assuming he is conscious.

Note however that Darkness has a 20 ft radius - so any build that uses this will want to focus on attacking from a distance, not being on the front line, potentially screwing your friends with the 20% miss chance.

At Home in the Deep: You can see through Darkness as if it weren't there. Now you don't have to worry about that pesky 20% miss chance, though your enemies will. Note that a strait Dragonfire Adept won't have to take this, since he doesn't have to roll to hit an enemy with his breath weapon. A Warlock 2 can avoid taking this feat by using the Devil's Sight Invocation.

Blend into Shadows: Allows you to make a Hide check as a Swift Action, even while being observed. You'll still take the Hide penalty for Sniping, but in most cases it'll still be pretty damn hard for your enemies to find you. Combine with Darkstalker from Lords of Madness, and you can even Hide from things with Scent, Tremorsense, See Invisibility, and similar abilities.

Instinctive Darkness: Darkness as an Immediate Action. You really shouldn't need this, since you'll have Darkness on all day. But if your Darkness is dispelled somehow, this will let you re-instate it without having to use an Standard Action. You can also use it to cast Darkness as an Immediate Action on enemies who are targeting your party with ranged weapons, imposing a 20% miss chance on them.

There are a few others, but they're mostly useless or situational.

Anywho, I think this adds a ton of potential to Dragonfire Adept, Warlock, and the and many ranged combat options. Please post your favorite builds and combos.

[JackMage666]

I rather like Intensify Darkness, as it makes it last for days on end. Mixing that with Devil's Sight means you practically always shrouded in darkness only you can see through perfectly. Plus, you can put it on your friends as well, so they can gain the smae benefit (if they gain a way to see in Magical Darkness)

[Fax Celestis]

Isn't there a feat or spell or something that makes you invisible to darkvision too?

[Person_Man]

Isn't there a feat or spell or something that makes you invisible to darkvision too?

Darkvision isn't effective on magical darkness. That's why you (or your enemies) need Devil's Sight or At Home in the Deep in order to bypass it.

[Fax Celestis]

Darkvision isn't effective on magical darkness. That's why you (or your enemies) need Devil's Sight or At Home in the Deep in order to bypass it.

Right, right. Or the Ebon Eyes spell.

[JackMage666]

Ring of the Darkhidden (Magic Item Compendium) makes you invisible to Darkvision, though. Not to regular sight, just darkvision.

[Dhavaer]

You can also use it to cast Darkness as an Immediate Action on enemies who are targeting your party with ranged weapons, imposing a 20% miss chance on them.

Why would you want to cast darkness on your enemies? 3.5 darkness gives concealment to everything in its radius, normally you don't want enemies to have concealment.

[Person_Man]

Why would you want to cast darkness on your enemies? 3.5 darkness gives concealment to everything in its radius, normally you don't want enemies to have concealment.

With Instinctive Darkness, casting your Darkness Invocation is an Immediate Action. Thus, even if you are Surprised and/or lose Initiative, you can use it to impose a 20% miss chance on your enemies' attacks. If you're ambushed by a large number of enemies, this could potentially save you a lot of damage.

Then when it comes around to your turn, you can dismiss your Invocation as a Standard action, and your party can attack without a miss chance.

Or you can leave it in place, and target your enemies with area of effect attacks that don't require an attack roll, like a Dragonfire Adept's breath weapon or many spells.

Or if you have At Home in the Deep, Devil's Sight, Ebon Eyes, or Pierce Magical Concealment, you can ignore the 20% miss chance. Or Blind-Fight will allow you to re-roll the miss chance. If your party is smart, everyone has one of these, because they know you're going to use Darkness a lot.

Or if you weren't walking around with your Darkness cast on you (for example, if you were walking around a town and didn't want to draw attention to yourself by walking around surrounded by a 20 foot globe of darkness) you could cast it on yourself as an Immediate Action to protect yourself from attacks, and then Hide in it during your turn, or move away from your party (so that they don't suffer the miss chance) and attack the enemy with your breath weapon, spells, or ranged attacks+ At Home in the Deep et al.

Instinctive Darkness is a situational feat, and I admit that. But certainly, I think it has good uses.

[JackMage666]

Can't you hide in a Darkness spell (or, in this case, SLA), thanks to the concealment? That provides a whole new level of usefulness for a 1 lvl dip in Warlock for a Rogue. Aside from that, you can apply Sneak Attack to the Eldritch Blast (all 1d6 of the Eldritch Blast), so a ranged attack too.

[Fax Celestis]

Can't you hide in a Darkness spell (or, in this case, SLA), thanks to the concealment? That provides a whole new level of usefulness for a 1 lvl dip in Warlock for a Rogue. Aside from that, you can apply Sneak Attack to the Eldritch Blast (all 1d6 of the Eldritch Blast), so a ranged attack too.

Actually, if you're a Spellthief, it's unlimited ranged thievery.

[JackMage666]

Oh dear, we've broken the Spelltheif now, too.

[Person_Man]

Can't you hide in a Darkness spell (or, in this case, SLA), thanks to the concealment? That provides a whole new level of usefulness for a 1 lvl dip in Warlock for a Rogue. Aside from that, you can apply Sneak Attack to the Eldritch Blast (all 1d6 of the Eldritch Blast), so a ranged attack too.

You can Hide in a Darkness spell as part of a Move action, provided that no one is observing you. If someone is observing you in the round that you Hide (even casually, such as during combat), then you can't Hide, unless you cause a distraction with Bluff, have Hide in Plain Sight, or have Blend into Shadows (which allows you to Hide as a Swift action).

Actually, if you're a Spellthief, it's unlimited ranged thievery.

Does the Invocation/Spell transparency thing effect the Master Spellthief feat? If so...

LA +0 Drow Warlock 4/Spellthief 1/Demonbinder 1/Whatever X

Warlock 4 gives you Darkness, Devil's Sight, Baleful Utterance (req for Demonbinder), the ability to Take 10 on UMD checks, and Eldritch Blast.

Spellthief 1 gives you +1d6 Sneak Attack and the ability to steal spells.

Demonbinder (which requires that you be Drow) allows you to turn into a variety of combat forms, every single combat. The power of your forms are based on your Demonbinder levels + Cha. If you can swing 1 Demonbinder level and 24 Cha, you can take the Marilith form, which gives you 40 temporary hit points and 2 extra arms, allowing you to use Multiweapon Fighting. (If you can't swing 24 Cha, you'll have to take a few more levels of Demonbinder, which also grants you Invocation progression and damage reduction).

Use UMD with 4 Wands of Flame Blade, which grant touch attacks. (You might also want to take Oversized TWF, to negate the penalty from using scimitars in every hand).

You attack 4+ times per round with touch attacks, and then Hide as a Swift Action with Blend Into Shadows. If your attacks qualify for Sneak Attack (you shouldn't have much trouble with this), you can also completely decimate your enemy's spells and/or spell-like abilities.

If Master Spellthief doesn't work with Invocation levels, then the combo isn't as nice. But it kicks in at 6th level, so you should be able to go into Duskblade or something similar to gain caster levels while maintaining combat prowess.

[Fax Celestis]

Two interesting bits of note: the Factotum, with his Arcane Dilettante class feature, doesn't actually prepare and cast spells, he prepares and casts spell-like abilities. If he prepares darkness as a spell-like ability (and he can prepare it with metamagics too), he qualifies for the feats you mentioned, in particular: Blend into Shadow. Hey, look. Hide in Plain Sight.

Further, the Shadowcaster's mysteries eventually become spell-like abilities. In particular, the fundamental Black Candle acts as either light or darkness, and becomes usable an unlimited number of times per day at 13th level.

[Arbitrarity]

With Instinctive Darkness, casting your Darkness Invocation is an Immediate Action. Thus, even if you are Surprised and/or lose Initiative, you can use it to impose a 20% miss chance on your enemies' attacks. If you're ambushed by a large number of enemies, this could potentially save you a lot of damage.

[nitpick]Immediate actions can't be used while flatfooted[/nitpick]

[Kaelik]

Further, the Shadowcaster's mysteries eventually become spell-like abilities. In particular, the fundamental Black Candle acts as either light or darkness, and becomes usable an unlimited number of times per day at 13th level.

The fundamental however is a supernatural ability, and so might not qualify one for the feats.

[DragoonWraith]

Does the Invocation/Spell transparency thing effect the Master Spellthief feat? If so...

Probably... not. Or rather, while levels of Warlock probably count as levels in a "spellcasting class" for the purposes of Master Spellthief, they explicitly don't qualify for the "Able to cast 2nd level spells" requirement of Master Spellthief. Which is quite sad...

[Goonthegoof]

If you're human just take the magical training and precocious apprentice feats at first level.