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I sounds like you may be planning some kind of min/maxed adventuring party.
If you are wondering about classes to look for I'd consider Beguiler (PHB2).
If you are wondering about classes to look for I'd consider Beguiler (PHB2).
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Sorry if it is not what you are looking for because quite frankly you don't really ask any questions or give an indication of what you are looking for. If you want something specific you should be asking specific questions and also providing more specific information.
Now without knowing more if you are looking at someone to "counterspell" an enemy caster perhaps you should look into some archer builds that can get a lot of damage out with a single standard action. How does that work as a counterspell? It's pretty simple, they start casting a spell and you use a readied action to fill them full of arrows dealing enough damage that they fail their Concentration check and lose the spell.
Now without knowing more if you are looking at someone to "counterspell" an enemy caster perhaps you should look into some archer builds that can get a lot of damage out with a single standard action. How does that work as a counterspell? It's pretty simple, they start casting a spell and you use a readied action to fill them full of arrows dealing enough damage that they fail their Concentration check and lose the spell.
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You still aren't really providing enough information. What level characters are we supposed to be looking at? If there are estabilished characters that you want to plan advancement for what do they look like?
Right now I am begining to see some evi/nearly evil/grey campaign where the players are basically all working as a specialized black ops team that is used to "quietly" eliminate threats. I guess that shouldn't be surprising as that is what you ask for.
Now I'm not up to speed on psionics so I have NO idea what your character looks like and what it is capable of doing. It sounds to me like you are looking to add a "skill monkey" and some kind of "anti-magic" character as well. Now I think a three man party can be great especially in specialized campaigns but they will work best if they can compliment each other whichis hard to do when you have one piece in there already but don't know what it is.
Right now I am begining to see some evi/nearly evil/grey campaign where the players are basically all working as a specialized black ops team that is used to "quietly" eliminate threats. I guess that shouldn't be surprising as that is what you ask for.
Now I'm not up to speed on psionics so I have NO idea what your character looks like and what it is capable of doing. It sounds to me like you are looking to add a "skill monkey" and some kind of "anti-magic" character as well. Now I think a three man party can be great especially in specialized campaigns but they will work best if they can compliment each other whichis hard to do when you have one piece in there already but don't know what it is.
Am I getting this right:
-You are a level 5 psychic warrior.
-You are getting two friends to play with you, with level 5 characters.
-You want the entire party to work well together for black ops missions.
-You do NOT want the characters to be multiclassed with other base classes (note: if you want any prestige classes, you have to multiclass by definition: the prestige class itself is a second class)
If all of that is correct, what are the starting ability scores and what books are we allowed to use?
For killing casters a character with reach and mage slayer feat focusing on huge single blows.comes in my mind
Thanks seeron, thats the most helpful response I've gotten.
If that is the most helpful then I guess there is no need to leave my posts so clearly visible. Minimalistic appears to be good although if you are seeking answers you need the right questions.
The player who is aiming for a Paladin of Tyranny may want to consider the usual "debuffer" approach instead: Hexblade 4 (using PHB2's Dark Companion alternate class feature) mixed with Paladin of Tyranny 2 (for Aura of Despair) for two separate no-save ways to lower their saving throws. This also gives you some serious power on your Charisma (as it adds to all your saving throws, and again to all your saving throws vs spells, and you've got Mettle to negate fortitude and will effects), and you pack a once-a-day curse to use on serious fights for even more mechanical edge. You can go even further if you mix in pact magic - a small investment in Binder or feats from the Tome of Magic can get you a pact with Focalor (for another save-reducing aura), while a bigger investment can get you Chupoclops (for a bigger aura and better combat abilities). The Dead for Nothing link in my signature includes my character Hadyn, who is an effort to do this in a single class (I'm not taking the paladin of tyranny because the character in question isn't actually Evil, among other reasons, but I'm making do with a single-classed hexblade.)
"Skill Monkey" is largely a role that can be absorbed by other roles rather than raw skill points, eventually, but at the levels you're talking about, you can't do better than a single-classed Factotum (Dungeonscape) with heavy Intelligence and as many Font of Inspiration feats as possible. There's also a few builds in my signature, such as the Uncanny Trapsmith, Flip the Bird, the Chaingun Porcupine, or Always on Edge, which can fit this bill as well.
- I am looking for class ideas for a level 1-20 (prestige classes as well) that will give a non-caster the ability to take down casters with ease.
- I am also looking for a skill monkey/silent killer prestige class that maintains the rogue skills but offers a little more killing potential. Assassin from the DMG has all the skills and adds some killing potential but I was wondering if there were any others that might be more efficient killers.
- I am also looking at race and feat ideas for both
- 3.5 books only, no homebrew, no dragon magazine, and please tell me the books everything is in so I can look them up myself
Hope this solves all the confusion. Thanks again.
Now I'll be honest, I don't do a lot of builds here in large part because I don't "optimize" to nearly the degree that some do. If you're looking for nuts builds I believe Tempest's signature will take you to a bunch of highly optimized builds which can lead you to what you want. I will address your list of "requests" however:
1. There really isn't any "non-caster" that can take a waiting/prepared caster down "with ease." If you're not multiclassing that task becomes a lot harder as the full casters are considered to top of the class-power line even when they don't use multiclassing. Taking a caster down "with ease" requires hitting them fast, hard, and perhaps most importantly unexpectedly.
2. The most efficient way to kill another character is to simply catch it in a "helpless" situation and slit its throat (coup-de-grace). Great combat ability is not what makes a great assassin rather it is the ability to strike when someone is completely unprepared for it.
-There isn't a single good anitmage option short of an Antimagic Field, which messes with you usually around as much as it messes with them. Basically, the best way to fight a spellcaster is to be another spellcaster - and even then, as levels and player proficiency increase, it frequently reaches the point where the best way to fight another spellcaster is to not fight the other spellcaster, since an all-out fight would be too dangerous for both parties due to layers upon layers of divination and contingency effects (and therefore it kind of plays out like this, in a manner of speaking, in that it doesn't actually play out).
The usual optimization forums are down due to attacks recently, so I can't link to the proof, but basically, spellcasters are much stronger than you give them credit. The classes are not all on the same tier power-wise. Some are quite capable of reshaping reality at a thought, while others can barely look menacing with a sword. The levels where tier differences begin to get really pronounced for the first time are, interestingly, somewhere in the 5-7 range if you're taking it slow (you can make it pronounced at level 1 if you try, where a fighter might be able to hit for 2 extra points of damage but a wizard could instantly end an entire fight in one spell, possibly with no save).
-If you're looking for a nonspellcaster who can quickly assassinate individuals, I'd suggest the Tome of Battle as a starting point, as I usually do. Swordsages there are wonderfully versatile classes and can make pretty decent assassins all on their own - and you can increase this by looking at monk feats of all things. (Classic mid-level example: Shadow Stride maneuver to teleport next to the target as a move action, Sun School: Flash of Sunset tactical feat to deliver a free unarmed attack, augmented with Freezing the Lifeblood, which adds a paralysis effect to your Stunning Fist, follow up using the Death Blow feat to perform a coup de grace against the paralyzed target as a standard action. Still leaves your swift action open for a boost, stance-switching, or allows you to do this if you countered last round). You'll note this doesn't rely on things like Death Attack (which has too low a DC and takes too long of a warm-up to really be worth it) nor does it rely on precision damage (as if you want to really kill something, you find a way to ignore its hit points rather than whittling them down in a slugfest). This does rely on an opportunistic attack, but it also creates its own opportunities, and remains useful outside of those areas as well.