Assassin 1st
Rogue 1st
Brawler - Snakebite striker- 1st
Inner Sea Pirate 1st
Grey Gardener 1st
Master Spy 1st
Pain Taster 2nd
Sleepless Detective 1st
Red Mantis Assassin 1st
Off the top of my head, classes that give it at level 1 or 2
Vivisectionist and rogue don't increase your rate, just stack for determining rate.
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Was going to say snakebite striker 1/vivisectionist 19 with vmc rogue for 15d6 sneak attack. Didn't really think of PrCs, but the problem with stacking all of these classes is that for 10 levels you only gain a BAB of 1, meaning you pretty much need touch attacks to hit. And if you do take them with snakebite and vivisectionist with vmc, you end up with 19d6 sneak attack, which is nice, but probably not worth the accuracy drop.
Base Classes
Rogue/Ninja
Alchemist (Vivisectionist) - levels stack with other source to determine sneak attack dice
Brawler (Snakeback Striker)
Brawler (Strangler) - grapple damage or pin only, doesn't count for prerequisites
Magus (Greensting Slayer) - must spend points, doesn't count for prerequisites
Monk (Monk of the Mantis; 2nd) - flurry of blows only, must be lawful to gain levels but not to retain abilities
Prestige Classes (only counting ones that grant it at 1st level)
Assassin
Gray Gardener (requires 2nd level divine spells)
Inner Sea Pirate (must be nonlawful)
Master Spy
Red Mantis Assassin
Sleepless Detective
So looking at that, the character with the most sneak attack would be
Rogue 2/ Brawler (Snakeback Striker) 1/Ex-Monk (Monk of the Mantis) 1/ Magus (Greensting Slayer) 1/Assassin 1/Inner Sea Pirate 1/Master Spy 1/Red Mantis Assassin 1/Sleepless Detective 1 for 9d6 sneak attack at 10th level. With 9 more Rogue levels, the character deals 14d6 sneak attack damage per hit.
HOWEVER - This character's Base Attack Bonus lags far behind at a pathetic +2 at 10th level.
EDIT Oh yeah forgot about VMC; in that case your best bet would be Snakeback Striker 11/Ex-Monk of the Mantis 3/Greensting Slayer 1/Assassin 1/Inner Sea Pirate 1/Master Spy 1/Red Mantis Assassin 1/ Sleepless Detective 1 for 18d6 sneak attack. This improves your base attack slightly; at 10th level you would have +3, and at 20th you would only be 2 points behind a rogue at +13.
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Base Classes
Rogue/Ninja
Alchemist (Vivisectionist) - levels stack with other source to determine sneak attack dice
Brawler (Snakeback Striker)
Brawler (Strangler) - grapple damage or pin only, doesn't count for prerequisites
Magus (Greensting Slayer) - must spend points, doesn't count for prerequisites
Monk (Monk of the Mantis; 2nd) - flurry of blows only, must be lawful to gain levels but not to retain abilitiesPrestige Classes (only counting ones that grant it at 1st level)
Assassin
Gray Gardener (requires 2nd level divine spells)
Inner Sea Pirate (must be nonlawful)
Master Spy
Red Mantis Assassin
Sleepless DetectiveSo looking at that, the character with the most sneak attack would be
Rogue 2/ Brawler (Snakeback Striker) 1/Ex-Monk (Monk of the Mantis) 1/ Magus (Greensting Slayer) 1/Assassin 1/Inner Sea Pirate 1/Master Spy 1/Red Mantis Assassin 1/Sleepless Detective 1 for 9d6 sneak attack at 10th level. With 9 more Rogue levels, the character deals 14d6 sneak attack damage per hit.HOWEVER - This character's Base Attack Bonus lags far behind at a pathetic +2 at 10th level.
EDIT Oh yeah forgot about VMC; in that case your best bet would be Snakeback Striker 11/Ex-Monk of the Mantis 3/Greensting Slayer 1/Assassin 1/Inner Sea Pirate 1/Master Spy 1/Red Mantis Assassin 1/ Sleepless Detective 1 for 18d6 sneak attack. This improves your base attack slightly; at 10th level you would have +3, and at 20th you would only be 2 points behind a rogue at +13.
Thanks. Seems you need to strike a balance with bab and sneak attack. What abuot getting 5d6 sneak attack by 8th level without a big bab hit?
That's simple. Snakeback Striker 8 with VMC Rogue. Full base attack, +5d6 sneak attack. The BAB only falls below expectations when you take a bunch of the classes at 1st level only, as all but Brawler are average BAB.
If you have a friend who uses sneak attack, pick up the Precise Strike Teamwork Feat for an extra +1d6 damage as well.
Was going to say snakebite striker 1/vivisectionist 19 with vmc rogue for 15d6 sneak attack. Didn't really think of PrCs, but the problem with stacking all of these classes is that for 10 levels you only gain a BAB of 1, meaning you pretty much need touch attacks to hit. And if you do take them with snakebite and vivisectionist with vmc, you end up with 19d6 sneak attack, which is nice, but probably not worth the accuracy drop.
Well if your DM allows VMC, you might aswell try to convince him to give you the fractal progression aswell so you dont take a BAB hit.
It really doesn't matter how much damage you can deal out if you can't hit.
High attack bonus + decent damage per hit will trump Very low attack bonus with high damage per hit.
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Eldritch Poisoner archetype for Alchemist also gets sneak attack at level one, and doesn't require you to be quite so creepy as Vivisectionist.
But of the list, only the Brawler one has a bab, so a bit awkward there.
My wayang did exactly this to load up on sneak attack dice. Also has other tricks to increase his to-hit.
There is a feat that grants another sneak attack die - it's a trap. It caps your sneak attack dice at half your character level, the opposite of our goal.
If you are using the unchained rules for partial bab, things get a lot nicer, as all those classes with 2/3 bab start stacking. Unchained rogue is also nice, but there's a complication. Unchained rogue can ignore concealment for their sneak attacks, but none of the other classes use that version. So to get the dice from the other classes vs concealment, you'll need the feat that allows it.
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Also for this, having the knife master (for dex builds) or Skulking Slayer (for half-orcs, at lvl 3) archetype for rogue will change your sneak attack dice to d8's. And you'll want to be sneak attacking all the time, so you might add the Scout archetype (and 4 levels rogue) to get it whenever you charge.
Amulet of the Blooded (Fey) will give you 9 rounds of greater invisibility per day, per amulet. Good investment for 10k gp.
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It really doesn't matter how much damage you can deal out if you can't hit.
High attack bonus + decent damage per hit will trump Very low attack bonus with high damage per hit.
Yep.
And SA also comes with a price...Needs a flanking buddy or a way to effectively get it to apply. If the enemy is not immune.
i like using improved surprise follow through in combination with the dwarven cleave feats on a slayer to get tons of sneak attacks. The actual amount of SA dice is just normal slayer progression because it takes so many feats to make it work.
You have to balance how many sneak attacks you want vs how much bab you want, i don't know of a way to get it all on the same toon without combining gestalt and VMC and normal multiclassing.
VMC suggests it not be used with multiclassing, so don't expect to get both without GM approval.
That was the point, its always going to be a tradeoff between BAB and # of SA dice