I've had an idea for a build which I'd like to play, but I'd like some feedback as to how viable it would be, and how it might be improved.
It's basically stealthy, incredibly mobile guy who attacks from the shadows before disappearing again, while scaring the life out of opponents at the same time.
For a 20 point buy at level 12 I'd go something like this:
Strength 18 (Racial, 4th, 8th)
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 14 (12th)
Cha 12
1 - Barbarian - 10ft Movement, Rage, Power Attack, Dodge
2 - Inquisitor - Judgements, Travel Domain, monster law, stern gaze
3 - Inquisitor - Cunning Initiative, Detect Alignment, Track, Combat Reflexes
4 - Inquisitor - Solo Tactics, Precise Strike
5 - Inquisitor - Judgement 2/day, Mobility
6 - Inquisitor - Bane, Discern Lies
7 - Rogue (Thug) - Frightning, Sneak Attack, Furious Focus
8 - Rogue (Thug) - Evasion, Spring Attack
9 - Rogue (Thug) - Brutal Beating, Cornugon Smash
10 - Shadowdancer - Hide in plain sight
11 - Shadowdancer - Uncanny Dodge, Darkvision, Gang Up
12 - Shadowdancer - Shadow Illusion, Summon Shadow, Strong Impression
Speed - 50ft
BAB - 8/3
Saves - 10,8,8
So with no magic items or spells cast, his standard way of attacking would be to spring attack from the shadows using rage, judgements and bane. He'd use his high movement to get into a good position and his Shadow or allies as flanking partners.
With a big sword like falchion that's +18 to hit/ 2d4+5d6+20 damage (Average 42.5).
He'd then get a free intimidate check from Cornugon Smash, and a great chance of frightening the opponent with his thug abilities and high intimidate skill. He could choose to do a little less damage and sicken them too.
He'd then spring back into the shadows and hide in plain sight again.
So what do people think? Anything obviously wrong with the build, or feats to switch out to make it better?
Thanks for taking the time to read!
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I love the concept, but I hate I say it's fairly weak. It takes 2 rounds to get your judgement and bane up. Your rage is extremely limited, and class wise you're spreading yourself thin, leaving very little BaB.
My personal comments: barbarian or inquisitor. The level dip in barbarian isn't worth that much. You beed more barbarian, but inquisitor needs the level investment. The travel domain spell is long strider(though I don't know how inquisitors interact with domain spells), use that to get 50ft movement (also, if you don't want to rely on agile steps for difficult terrain, use feather step slippers. If not, boots of striding and springing). Only take a level in rogue for the 1st level thug ability.
Next: we're going to take fear to the next level. I like cornugon smash here, but if you're going up against a nonlethalable enemy enforcer-bludgeoner is frankly better. Bludgeoner can be replaced by blade of mercy- you wield a scythe and are now death coming for your enemies; this would be cool of you take a second level of barbarian to take the no escape rage power. No running for you! If your intimidate check succeeds they're intimidated for a number of rounds equal to damage dealt, not 1 round +1 for every 5 by which you succeed. This makes triggering the thug archetype frightened condition very very easy, which is an insanely powerful condition that is removing enemies from the fight. The next part is fairly feat intensive and not necessary, but I suggest weapon focus, dazzling display, and then shatter defenses. Shatter defenses is so unbelievable for rogue based or low BaB fear builds. Hit them twice and it's a ton easier to hit now.
EDIT: about the death themed character. Make him "The Jailor." he uses a scythed but he never kills, he hunts them down and captures then, gets a confession, and I'll leave his sentencing flavor to you (death feels very LE or LN, jail feels LG)
Thanks very much. Some very useful advice there!
The flavour of the scythe and makig him a 'Death/Jailor' character is great!
The low BAB I'm not too worried about since with all the buffs, he still has a great chance to hit almost anything. As it stands it's only 1 less than if I'd gone straight Inquisitor at level 12.
Swapping out the barbarian and 2 Thug levels for some more inquisitor could work very well, especially if I'm planning on taking him to higher levels. Inquisitors don't get any domain spells, but I could boost his speed with Expeditious Retreat.
The Enforcer/Bludgeoner combo looks great. Intimidate checks aren't that difficult anyway so I guess it comes down to the flavour of the build. Jailor vs Death. Your way is definitely more mechanically superior though.
I'll have to mock up the character again with your suggestions to see how they compare.
Thanks again!
It looks like that is a good alternative build.
Your guy looks like he can leap out and stand toe to toe a lot better, and he can keep his damage high indefinitely while mine will run out of bane and rage quite quickly.
You lose the fear effect and the hiding after ever attack thing though, which is flavour-wise one of my favourite things about the concept.
My guy also gets a huge amount of useful skills and abilities to use out of combat which is pretty handy depending on the campaign, but yours is easily the stronger in a combat heavy campaign with multiple fights a day.
Oh, I didn't realise that sorry. I'm not very familiar with the Eldritch Heritage stuff!
And yeah, Barbarian's aren't exactly useless at skills, especially with a trait or two to bolster their list, but my guy has a fantastic skill list and the points to make use of it. It's a small consolation I guess for being weaker in combat.
Uh... Yeah, way to much going on to pull it off well.
Barbarian: Taking only 1 level is ridiculous, you don't get even one Rage Power (or the ability to take Extra Rage Power Feats), and your Rage rounds are hugely limited, not much more than one medium length battle, and that's the only time you get the Rage bonuses. If you take any levels in Barb, you should try to take as many as possible IMHO... Scarred Rager Barbarian gets some nice bonuses to Intimidate (synergizing with Thug's Intimidate-> Frightened ability) and can "Rage Cycle" from Level 2 just from Class Abilities. Superstitious Archetype (distinct from Rage Power!) also gets nice stuff like Darkvision, Init and Surprise Round AC bonuses, and eventually Blindsense and Blindvision. Either take more levels or none. Also realize that the Wild Stalker Ranger archetype grants Rage and Rage Powers and Uncanny Dodge (while retaining Favored Terrain), that could be an alternate option as well as Inquisitor:
Inquisitor: I think their skills, spells, and abilities work well with this type of build focus, but you're not really making it work for you here. When i saw the thread title, I assumed you would be using Darkness Domain (or even better, Night Subdomain) to synergize with stealth/etc. That would be a good plan...
Or you could go with Rage Domain / Anger Inquisition and gain Rage that way instead of bothering with a Barbarian dip... the differences between Rage Domain/Anger Inquisition are a bit obtuse, basically it comes down to if stronger Rage bonuses and more Rage rounds is more important to you, or if getting Rage Powers (albeit without level pre-reqs) is more important to you. Either way you will have more Rage Rounds than a 1 level Barbarian Dip. If you want more Rage Powers, you could do a 2 level dip in Barbarian along with Inquisitor (stacking Rage), but I would only do that if you drop all the rest of the dips.
Thug: The Intimidate-> Frightened ability is cool, but i don't think Brutal Beating is worth it, it's just not that game-changing of a de-buff, you are better off trying to get Dazing Assault (BAB+11 prereq) ASAP, although you are not going to get that inside of 12 levels with any more than a 1 level dip out of Full BAB progression (and you would need to take the non-Full BAB dip at Level 12 if you don't want to wait until Level 13 for your next Feat). If you really want even the 1st level Thug ability, you should RADICALLY tighten up the rest of the build (and if you do this, I think also taking the Scout Archetype lets you more reliably use your Sneak Attack). If you did go Wild Stalker, that still retains Evasion, meaning if you did take 2 levels of Thug, they would stack for Improved Evasion, but I don't think the 3rd level is ever worth it.
Shadowdancer: HiPS is nice enough at first level, if the rest of the build is tight and can leverage stealth well, that could be worthwhile in some builds, although to point out: If you are using Inquisitor, they have Darkness and Invisibility on their spell list (and Darkness Domain/Night Subdomain's Su Ability grants Invisiblity in Dim Light/Darkness), so although those are not fool-proof, they really cover about 80% of the cases where you would want HiPS, right? ...Especially if you don't dip in Thug and thus feel compelled to manufacture more situations where Sneak Attack works in order to have an impressive damage output. Wild Stalker (Rage) Ranger Archetype also gains HiPS at 17th level, although the Ranger version is a bit different from the Shadowdancer version.
For the 2nd level abilities, you can gain Darkvision easily enough if you don't already have it: besides items/spells/UMD-scrolls, via Inquisitor's Darkness Domain/Night Subdomain, or Superstitious Archetype, and/or Rage Powers which also increase the range of any DV you already have, and/or the Infiltrator Ranger Archetype - replacing Favored Terrains (compatible with the Wild Ranger Archetype), and both Barbarian and Wild Stalker Ranger gain Uncanny Dodge. The 3rd level powers are cute, but you could probably just replicate them with some magic item or UMD-scroll on occasions where they are really useful.
I don't think it's ever worth going further than 1st level in Shadowdancer, and that only if you are going with Barbarian or Ranger builds, not Inquisitor.
You should try to boil it down to just ONE other class (or possibly the 1 level of Shadowdancer if you're not going with Inquisitor) before you even consider any Rogue dip, and just a one-level dip there is really the most justifiable to even consider (for Intimidate-> Frightened). If you are going Wild Stalker Ranger and really like Improved Evasion, a 2-level Rogue dip is possibly justifiable (although even that's a stretch), the 3rd Rogue level just isn't worth it IMHO...
Hm. With my expert analysis in hand, your character is worth approximately 1347 gp.
Thanks, Quandry. A lot of worthwhile points you make there.
The HiPS is definitely worth it for the build over darkness as I can hide as a free action after each attack. I like the extra movement of the Travel domain and barbarian level just for getting myself in position, and making spring attack more viable to hit different targets. I agree that it's costing me a lot to get that speed though. The darkness domain certainly fits better thematically for the build.
Hmm, I could get rid of the Inquisitor and extra Thug levels in exchange for a lot more Barbarian. It'd make me a lot more consistent in damaging things at least.
Once I've got so many full BAB levels though it starts to become far more useful to just stand toe to toe and hack away with full attacks which wasn't really what I'm trying to achieve. I want someone who strikes and vanishes before anyone can react, scaring people witless while they do it.
It's a shame I can't use spring attack with pounce before hiding in plain sight. That would be truly devastating.
In the stealth rules - "Normally, you make a Stealth check as part of movement, so it doesn't take a separate action."
Hide in plain sight - " A shadowdancer can use the Stealth skill even while being observed."
Yeah, but depending on the DM there should be something around that is casting a shadow. The only thing specifically ruled out is the character's own shadow. That's where the extra movement come in handy again. 15ft in and out may well not be enough to find a dark corner.
Damn, I knew I should've taken ranks in Appraise...
But I do know you'll want this trait to stealth while raging.
Glad to have inspired you character creation Driver! Hope you fun playing him if you get the chance.
Thanks Petty! That's incredibly useful for the build!
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Hey Lazlo, since your build inspired me, I thought I'd give you a link to the finished Barbarian Shadow Striker. He turned out better than I thought.
Hey just looking over your build and had a few thoughts.
You take Imp Eldritch Heritage at level 11, but your charisma boost to meet te 15 charisma prerequisite is at level 12, so you need to shift some stuff around there.
Second, I would trade out the human bonus feat for the three skill focuses variant, as it bets you two free skill focus feats without losing you anything (except delaying deadly aim but a -1/+2 isn't game changing at the low levels when you can probably close quickly.
I also would invest more in your sword. In this case, steal some money from your belt fund to add the courageous enhancement to your sword. There's nothing quite like improving all of your morale bonuses (all your rage bonuses) by two. Also, because your sword enhancement won't be able to use all the money by making the belt +2, make our armor a Mithril breastplate for 4k more. 4k is definitely a good exchange for a plus two that doesn't increase later costs any.
BTW, If you do go Travel Domain, the Dimensional Agility/Assault/Dervish Feats from UC seem very desirable...