I really like the idea of a deathsinger.
I cannot seem to get it to work though.
Bard 2
Swashbuckler 3
Assassin 10
Dark Hunter 5
or
Bard 2
Swashbuckler 3
Assassin 9
Telflammar Shadowlord 6
are ideas.
the goal is obviousl 16 or higher BAB.
bardic music for the Doomspeaker (2 from levels 4 from extra music feat)
I think its pretty easy to get the DC from death attack to 40 this way, also using doomspeaker its 6/day DC 50 fort save. weeeeell. DC 40 with a -10 on their check.
Grey elf, for the +2 int and +2 dex. (might have problems with multiclassing bard/swashbuckler there)
I'd love to know any method of gaining bardic music that isn't "be a bard" if there is one.
theres always the bard 5 option for more music/day more options more spells...but losing int to damage, which can get up to about 10-13 per attack by 20.
I think bard is needed for doomspeak. and then either assassin/dark hunter or assassin/ shadowlord for death attacking. but I'm pretty open to the mix if anyone has any better ideas.
Unseen Seer should fit nicely into this.
Bard 4/Warblade 1/Assassin 4/Evil Variant Jade Phoenix Mage 10. BAB +17 at l19. Full Assassin casting, 6th level Bard casting, or whichever way you want to use JPM's 8 caster levels.
I'm no optimizer, but I can't wait to see how you guys make it work.
Suel Arcanamach has some nice abilities in the early levels and a good spell list, and uses CHA as its casting stat. The requirements are kind of a pain, and I wouldn't take it beyond third level personally.
So, maybe something like bard/warblade/arcanamach/JPH? You'll keep the same casting stat throughout, get some sweet maneuvers and class abilities.
As an alternative, maybe mix in some levels of battle dancer from Dragon Compendium. Full BAB, monk's unarmed damage progression, CHA is a bonus to unarmoured AC, lots of appropriate skills are class skills (Hide, Move Silently, Perform, Tumble), and some of their dances come in very handy for combat characters.
One other option for a dip is the Blade Dancer from 3.0 OA. For one level, you can always take ten on Balance, Jump and Tumble, and gets a +10 competence bonus on those checks. The big one, though, is that your base land speed changes from 30ft to 60ft if you're wearing light armour and unencumbered. Not too shabby for one level, no matter what your build. Oh, and it's full BAB, too.
I like the second build more. The only improvement I can suggest is to use savage bard (UA/SRD) as a base for +3 Fortitude saves.
And I also have a build: divine bard 4 / xx 1 / assassin / black flame zealot. It does not do much except introducing further MAD and being generally weaker than the telflammar build.
and yea this is me trying to optimize because I like the flavour....this always gets me in trouble. the full story is that he kills people with an evil wrath/strengh cleric and store the souls in thineun rings/daggers, to sell to devils...which the party isn't fully informed about. (shh don't tell the lawful good sorceroress)
I mean if I went bard 5 assassin 1. thats level 6. lets say for sake of arguement int 22 grey elf + headband on an 18 base.
death attack DC 10 base. 1 assassin. 2 (feat ability focus) 6 Int bonus. and they get minus 10 on their save from Doomspeak...so basically its a DC 29 or a DC 19 with -10 on the check. at level 6 that save is unmakable unless they have full fort save progression and an 18 in con. or some other fort save bonus.
and still thats only on an actual 20. (unless you use 20 = always a success, then everyone still has a 5% chance to save.) even if you do it on some hefty dwarf fighter with 20 in con, he's still got a 85% chance of death, and if he manages the save he still takes some decent sneak attack damage.
I do also love the fact if you win initiative you've got a round after your surprise round to get out, anything the lives the death attack is likely a melee, so run up a wall and corner perch and hide in the shadows....hide for enough rounds and see if he wants to go double or nothing.
I've just looked into the Unluck spell, thats EXACTLY what I want. stuff that makes saves harder than they should be, more accurately fortitude saves...but yes. Doomspeak and Unluck = perfect, anything else anyone can think of before I find it is welcome :P
nice bladedancer dip, definately keep it in mind.
good call on the unseen seer, but it seems difficult to blend whilst keeping the death attack DC nice and high, also would be a hit to BAB, nice d6 and casting in there though.
divine bard would mix nicely with monk of the long death/monk only needing wis/int rather than wis/int/cha.
build proposals.
breakdown of the simple two I offered
Bard 2 (1BAB)
Swashbuckler 3 (3BAB)
Assassin 10 (7 BAB)
Dark Hunter 5 (5BAB)
bardic music 6/day with a feat. 1st level arcane spells.(bard)
int to damage, weapon finesse
death attack, poison use, some sneak attack dice. assassin spells.
darkhunter, 5 DC to death attack, a +1d6 SA, and a bonus to hiding near stone.
in total, close call but 16 BAB. 6d6 SA.
stats are
INT for dmg and death attack DC
DEX to hit and ac
CON not dying
CHA casting our 1st level spells. the DC's will suck so stick to buffs.
STR some more dmg? not important-ish
WIS will saves and spot checks.
this can be twisted round to a divine bard, so make charisma the dump stat.
also swashbuckler could be replaced by MOAR bard...for spellcasting
Bard 2 (1bab)
Swashbuckler 3 (3bab)
Assassin 9 (6bab)
Telflammar Shadowlord 6 (4bab)
uuuugh.. 14 BAB. 5d6 sneak
moar spells this time though, 1st level bard, 4th level assassin and 3rd level shadowlord spells. not amazing...but something, keeps the death attack DC up.
the skills needed are the same as last time.
out of the two, the dark hunter sounds better for the fact you actually hit the 16 BAB. a different approach would be Monk-ey style.
Divine bard 1
Monk 4
Monk of the long death 10
dark hunter 5
with a monks belt your gaining a level 19th monks unarmed damage and wis to AC
divine bard cantrips...yay
...and bardic music 5/daydark hunter gives good BAB and +5 DC to death attack.
main stats now are
INT death attack DC
WIS gives AC
STR to hit and damage.
CON
DEX (just pad the hide/move silently with max ranks)
CHA
gah MADness......(no one this is sparta me.)
from cru
divine bard 4 / xx 1 / assassin / black flame zealot
to be honest might as well put divine bard 5 there.
I'm not a huge fan of the black flame zealot...and yea it gets death attack DC up whilst still adding bard spells. which is nice...but theres a shortage of BAB in here.
well that leaves the build Senevri and NickResonance suggested.
Bard 4/Warblade 1/Assassin 4/Evil Variant Jade Phoenix Mage 10
hmmm jade phoenix mage 10? awesome emerald immolation...
lose a lot of death attack DC on this build, but gain manouvers etc. the spellcasting is nice. its a wonderful idea, and I'm going to need to think about it more but I think it loses direction on my original intentions. its less, sneaky sing stab.....but it is quite shiny.
Uncanny Trickster allows you to add +1 existing class features. could interpret that as assassin levels, thus adding to death attack DC, or similiar.
basically means I can drop assassin at 6. and still get HiPs etc. or at 10 and count as a +12 as it increases effective class level.
fortunes friend could be funny for forcing rerolls etc.
maybe a bard 5, assassin 6, uncanny trickster 3, Fortunes Friend 5...something with a 1 level dip. but without it we have
Bard 5 (3 bab)
Assassin 6 (4 bab)
UT 3 (2 bab)
FF 5 (2 bab)
assuming a +10 int bonus. 10 base, 10 int, 8 assassin, 2 ability focus, 1 assassins dagger. thats 31. doomspeak for effective 41. casting unluck would force him to roll twice and take worse. and luck feats could force a reroll.
I think shaken lowers saves doesn't it? but can't really fear someone from stealth/studying.
would give third level bard spells. third level assassin spells. a GOD AWFUL bab....and overall fail really...damn :P well replacing FF with dark hunter would gain 5 bab. and some death attack DC. so effective 46. bab is 14..even with a good bab class thats only 15. hmmm. damnit. doesn't quite work.
While studying the victim, the assassin can undertake other actions so long as his attention stays focused on the target and the target does not detect the assassin or recognize the assassin as an enemy.
As soon as you use doomspeak imho the victim will recognize you as an enemy. Is there something I'm missing? Can you use doomspeak while beeing hidden without revealing yourself? As a DM I'd probably rule that you need at least subsonics or something alike to do so but perhaps I'm wrong.
As a DM I'd probably rule that you need at least subsonics or something alike to do so but perhaps I'm wrong.
yes I just haven't said it yet...as I'm still working on the build because its impossible and driving me mad :D
but yea, subsonics to kinda deliver a death's whisper. in two ways
if I am performing (sing) I'd say that I was singing normally and see if my DM will let me put in a subsonic doomspeak aswell....like a subliminal message to my target :P thus allowing me to not be an enemy until I make the attack.
the other would be simpler just singing subsonically from the shadows until I strike. but yes you would need this feat. you could take extra music at level 1, doomspeak at 3 and subsonic at 6 (just as you get death attack ;) ) 9/day bardic music. allowing for doomspeak/death attack and fascinate/death attacks all day long.
obviously you'd use the fascinate on the wizards, to lock them in place and they don't have very good fort anyway. and the doomspeak on the big stupid fighter who has a fort save. "thats the theory anyway!" famous last words.
omg another build....1/20 chance it fails...c'mon natural 20.
bard 5.
Assassin 8.
nightsong enforcer 1
dread commando 1
darkhunter 5
OK.
BAB 16. Sneak attack 8d6. bardic music 5(9). death attack DC 10+8+5+2+1+13 (assuming int 36, grey elf, headband +6, tome of clear thought, natural 18 and level bonus) thats 39. doomspeak makes it effective 49. with a spare feat I could sudden ability focus that to 51 1/day but its not worth a feat imho.
bard spells of third level I believe and assassin upto fourth.
not actually too shabby tbh.
also I'd be giving my allies within 30 feet +1 initiative.
an alternative is swap bard 5 for bard 2, swash 3. to add int to dmg. 13 bonus dmg is nice. average a 1d6+8d6+1 = min 10. max 55. average 35 ish, not doing math guesstimating for speeds sake. so could add 13 per attack there. bringing it to 48 average, and 68 max. 23 min. for sneak attacks. could be worth doing for the sake of hitting 50 every now and then and forcing save vs massive damage...but I could just be going off on a tangent here. I need opinions on this.
also doing that would lose bard casting from 3rd level to 1st level. but bab would be 17 instead of 16
EDIT; question. if I put wounding on a weapon and reduced opponents con, that could help death attacks if I HiPs and waited after wounding them a bit? also would it count as lowering their con if I death attacked them on that attack. because a death attack is an automatic hit, so would they lower con after the save or before, thus affecting the save.
feats
1; Extra music
3; Doomspeak
6; Subsonics
9; Dodge
12; Mobility
15; Improved initiative.
18; Evasion
a flaw might be in order here. for two weapon fighting. or something to that effect, any suggestions?
Came across a bard ACF from Dungeonscape that might interest you. If you drop bardic knowledge, you can add +4 insight to any one attack, check, or save. Starts with one use a day at level one, and adds a use every odd numbered level.
yes seems good, I never really use bardic knowledge enough.
3/day +4 insight. if by one attack it means I could apply it to death attack, that would boost it to 53, with a MAX 55 1/day by taking a flaw to gain sudden burst ability focus.
55 would damn near kill anything worth assassinating for sure. good find :D if not at least I could take +4 on called shots or something, I love sneak attack called shots.
Kaszman where is thineun? I've been looking for this material for months now, which book does it come out of?
Complete Warrior pg 136-137
Thinaun: This dark, glittering steel alloy holds an attraction
to souls recently released from their bodies. Obviously,
this has application for melee weapons. If a thinaun melee
weapon is touching a creature when it dies, that creature’s
soul is sucked into the weapon rather than passing on to its
fi nal reward. The soul remains in the thinaun weapon until
the weapon is destroyed or another creature dies while touching
the thinaun weapon (the new soul displaces the old one).
Raise dead, resurrection, and similar spells won’t bring back a
creature whose soul is trapped by a thinaun weapon unless
the caster has the weapon in his possession. Because the soul
is nearby, fewer material components are required for such
spells: Reincarnation, raise dead, resurrection, and true resurrection
require half as much of the relevant material component
(unguents or diamonds) to cast if the soul is within a thinaun
weapon.
A thinaun weapon captures a soul from anyone killed
while touching the weapon. This means that if the thinaun
weapon’s wielder dies, her weapon captures her soul.
Only melee weapons made primarily of metal can be
crafted as thinaun weapons.
Type of Thinaun Item Item Cost Modifier
Light weapon +10,000 gp
One-handed weapon, +15,000 gp
or one head of a double weapon
Two-handed weapon, +20,000 gp
or both heads of a double weapon
yes I just haven't said it yet...as I'm still working on the build because its impossible and driving me mad :D
but yea, subsonics to kinda deliver a death's whisper. in two ways
if I am performing (sing) I'd say that I was singing normally and see if my DM will let me put in a subsonic doomspeak aswell....like a subliminal message to my target :P thus allowing me to not be an enemy until I make the attack.
the other would be simpler just singing subsonically from the shadows until I strike. but yes you would need this feat. you could take extra music at level 1, doomspeak at 3 and subsonic at 6 (just as you get death attack ;) ) 9/day bardic music. allowing for doomspeak/death attack and fascinate/death attacks all day long.
obviously you'd use the fascinate on the wizards, to lock them in place and they don't have very good fort anyway. and the doomspeak on the big stupid fighter who has a fort save. "thats the theory anyway!" famous last words.
I read through subsonics again and think that using doomspeak while hidden will definitly work. If you carry a harmonizing weapon you could even fascinate/doomspeak/death attack I think.
But the requirements of these feats are 8 ranks in perform and intimidate for doomspeak and 10 ranks in perform for subsonics and thus you cant take them before lvl 6 / 9.
If you take 4lvls of Bard you can fascinate 2 persons at the same time. The fifth bard would be a waste as it neither gives bab, saves nor any class features except a lvl 1 and a lvl 2 spell slot and spell known.
yea rearrange the feats.
I'm still curious if anyone can help regarding;
an alternative is swap bard 5 for bard 2, swash 3. to add int to dmg. 13 bonus dmg is nice. average a 1d6+8d6+1 = min 10. max 55. average 35 ish, not doing math guesstimating for speeds sake. so could add 13 per attack there. bringing it to 48 average, and 68 max. 23 min. for sneak attacks. could be worth doing for the sake of hitting 50 every now and then and forcing save vs massive damage...but I could just be going off on a tangent here. I need opinions on this.
also doing that would lose bard casting from 3rd level to 1st level. but bab would be 17 instead of 16
EDIT; question. if I put wounding on a weapon and reduced opponents con, that could help death attacks if I HiPs and waited after wounding them a bit? also would it count as lowering their con if I death attacked them on that attack. because a death attack is an automatic hit, so would they lower con after the save or before, thus affecting the save.
from my other post. also any suggestions to improve the build are more than welcome.
Someone hates Bards so much that he wants to make a character dedicated to killing them? He may be doing the world a service.
Since you want to play a grey elf you should go with the second build since it doesnt impose xp penalties.
feats:
swb1: weapon finesse
1: extra music
3: track
6: doomspeak
9: subsonics
12: ability focus (death attack) (you calculated this in but I'm not sure where you got it before)
15: blindfight
18: darkstalker (always awesome for a rogue)
Death attack will be 10+15classes+13int+2focus+1dagger=41
Perform is not a class skill for assassins and dark hunters so your fascinate ability will kinda suck. If it is important to you consider being a human instead, go bard4/swb1 and take able learner at lvl1. Flaws could get you twf (imp twf with gloves of the balanced hand) and quick draw which is always naice for an assassin.
Another variant would be divine bard 5/black flame zealot5/strifeleader10. It has only 13bab and needs irom will, ewp(kukri), wf(longsword) and spell focus illusion but it nets you death attack: 10+15lvl+13int+4greater death attack+2ability focus+1dagger=45. Furthermore you can cast spells as a lvl 14 bard netting you 5th lvl spells.
edit: forgot the 1d6 sneak attack requirement on black flame zealot... but bard5/rogue1/bfz4/sl10 loses just 1 point of death attack.
edit2: Of course you could just go the cleric route altogether: cloistered cleric 5/bard1/sl10/bfz4 and use divine might and all the other good things 7th lvl cleric casting gives...
I'd go with either bard4/swashbuckler1 or bard2/swashbuckler3 to qualify for assassin10/darkhunter5. Both give 16 bab. The other builds just need to many extra feats to qualify. Don't forget that you need blindfight and track to get into darkhunter.
Death attack will be 10+15classes+13int+2focus+1dagger=41
Right, yes I am always making newb mistakes like that :D
Another variant would be divine bard 5/black flame zealot5/strifeleader10. It has only 13bab and needs irom will, ewp(kukri), wf(longsword) and spell focus illusion but it nets you death attack: 10+15lvl+13int+4greater death attack+2ability focus+1dagger=45. Furthermore you can cast spells as a lvl 14 bard netting you 5th lvl spells.
the problem I have with this build is that you need high int....but you cast off your wis. and you need high strengh to hit. its a little MAD, but definately a nice build.
right, constructive criticism, good. I think the first build would suit my needs a little more, a more melee type.