Help with an Assassin/thief kind of build

[K'yon Oblodra]

Hey Chad,

I guess I didn't think this through but I did understand your post. So I would get 4 attacks on the first flurry the first having max AB and the others successively 5 less down to max - 15.

Which is why i wonder if the high BAB combination might not be better even than the Assassin.

I don't think you are understanding my explanation of how flurries work with # of attacks per round. In fact with any sneak attack build you really MUST either go archery or perfect two weapon fighting (unless a feint build).

As I stated in the other thread, your first flurry of attacks is dependent upon your total APR, so without PTWF you cap out at 5 APR (6 with haste) thus you only get 2 sneak attacks at max level. PTWF gives you 10 APR, which is a threshold number since 9 APR would still be 3 sneak attacks (3 attacks in the first flurry) while the 10th attack gives you 4. Hopefully this makes it more understandable, but suffice to say for a DEX build with lots of sneak dice and HiPS you really need perfect two weapon fighting or archery build.

[chad878262]

Hey Chad,

I guess I didn't think this through but I did understand your post. So I would get 4 attacks on the first flurry the first having max AB and the others successively 5 less down to max - 15.

Which is why i wonder if the high BAB combination might not be better even than the Assassin.

I don't think you are understanding my explanation of how flurries work with # of attacks per round. In fact with any sneak attack build you really MUST either go archery or perfect two weapon fighting (unless a feint build).

As I stated in the other thread, your first flurry of attacks is dependent upon your total APR, so without PTWF you cap out at 5 APR (6 with haste) thus you only get 2 sneak attacks at max level. PTWF gives you 10 APR, which is a threshold number since 9 APR would still be 3 sneak attacks (3 attacks in the first flurry) while the 10th attack gives you 4. Hopefully this makes it more understandable, but suffice to say for a DEX build with lots of sneak dice and HiPS you really need perfect two weapon fighting or archery build.

Yes, your attacks will be AB, -5, -10, -15... However, Expose Weakness should be used out of stealth which applies a stacking -3 to AC for 5 rounds, thus each round more and more of your sneak attacks will land.

Pro tip, bind your stealth to your keyboard as well as Expose Weakness when you get it. For me I always bind Stealth to the '2' key and when I had a character with EW I always bound it to '3'. That way I could hit 's' to disengage from combat, '2' to enter stealth, and '3' to execute EW and automatically begin the combat sequence.

[K'yon Oblodra]

Thanks for the hint...

So expose weakness stacks up to like 4-5 times? Up to like 12-15 AC lost or even more?

Lol so much too learn... Hijacked my own topic from my questions regarding the different feat archetypes and my two "build ideas"

[chad878262]

It stacks fully and has a duration of 5 rounds, so the max you can stack solo is -15 AC (only bosses will generally last long enough for that though!).

If you get 4 or 5 PC's that all have Expose Weakness then you can end up with a boss getting silly things like -60 AC or something...Again, if the boss lasts a full 5 rounds.

Note that there may be changes coming to Expose Weakness, but they have not been finalized yet so I can't specify what the final outcome will be other than to say there is no plan to remove EW entirely.

[K'yon Oblodra]

Sounds very broken, probably one could introduce a limit of 5 stacks if it's not too hard to code.

It stacks fully and has a duration of 5 rounds, so the max you can stack solo is -15 AC (only bosses will generally last long enough for that though!).

If you get 4 or 5 PC's that all have Expose Weakness then you can end up with a boss getting silly things like -60 AC or something...Again, if the boss lasts a full 5 rounds.

Note that there may be changes coming to Expose Weakness, but they have not been finalized yet so I can't specify what the final outcome will be other than to say there is no plan to remove EW entirely.

[K'yon Oblodra]

Wondered if anyone had an opinion on this besides the attack and flurry thing and possibly including expose weakness.

Can one build a thief with all these feats combined or should one just concentrate on a certain archetype?

Also is invisible blade as good as it seems? I mean 5 AC is pretty damn good and the high BAB as well, the bleeding damage probably doesn't work against a lot of PvE targets I suppose?

I've done some tries in the builder...

Didn't really come to a great conclusion as it always seemed like I would be missing out on good stuff either way I was trying.

Another thing that struck me was that invisible blade requires two weapon fighting which seems counter intuitive considering the main damage comes from the first flurry or will that give me more attacks in that flurry as well? Which would probably make it a good thing to invest in even more two weapon fighting feats.

Then there are crippling strike and epic precision which seem very good.

Lastly there is the epic dodge which to me seems to be super costly. Defensive roll dodge improved evasion which is requiring quiet a lot of levels in either Rogue or SD and lastly 30 tumble which would be at level 27 earliest making this be available super late.
Makes me wonder if that feat is all that desirable.

All in all I wonder are there like Rogue archetypes that only specialize in either of those things exclusively or is it very well possible to combine most of these?

Currently I see two different paths for me to go.

One would be the Rogue?/GT(3)-5/IB5/Assassin8-10 build where I am still very unsure which feats to pick which would have the obvious advantage of the death attack, feint and hips but what feels like very late.

The other build would be R?/GT3-5/IB5/WS7-10/SD3-5
This would get a higher AB with WS which would also grant Camouflage which feels like it would be super awesome but it would be super tricky to build and probably take forever to get critical feats. Also I wonder if the extra AB is worth it or not.

I know this was a very long post, sorry bout that, there is just so many questions here for me

[chad878262]

If you are building a rogue heavy build (16+ levels of rogue) and you don't get Epic Precision, Expose Weakness, PTWF and Epic Dodge then you are hurting yourself. Even with all 4 of these epic feats you will struggle against top bosses at max level...In general you will struggle against CR appropriate bosses at all levels. Can you make a build that doesn't have Epic Dodge? Sure! But is there another defensive feat that comes close to it (an equivalent of +5 AC, but better in some cases)? No, you can't. Already explained why PTWF is a must have, but here is a brief explanation of why Epic Precision and EW are also must haves:

EP: You are weak, your damage is solely reliant on sneak attack damage. Thus, crit/sneak immune enemies with DR will make it so your damage is effectively zero, thus you need an effective way to land sneak attacks, either via feint with god-like bluff stat or through HiPS. You also need some way to damage those crit/sneak immunes...Thus, Epic Precision!

EW: You are a rogue...Even with 5 levels of IB your AB is going to be crap... Probably somewhere ~35-38 tops (38 if you min max stats, have access to epic gear and use consumables). You want to hit on all 4 sneak attacks next round? You'll need to hit them with EW this round.


HiPS, Expose Weakness and Epic Precision are the rogues offense. HiPS and Epic Dodge are the Rogue's defense. Doing away with any of these things, IMO would make playing a rogue heavy character unbearable because the servers bosses are already designed to suck for rogues. Any other type of build (fighter types, wizard types, cleric types) have multiple ways to build and be able to handle the majority of server bosses solo (save for balor and white dragon). Not so with a Rogue... They generally can not solo any epic boss outside the Epic Lizard chieftain or Wyrmthrax (but with Wyrmthrax I would think generous use of wands/potions/scrolls will be needed). Take away their most powerful feats and abilities (any of them) and I imagine you will find the class very much not fun to play.


Now, if you want a rogue-ish character with SOME sneak attack, but that does not PRIMARILY rely on sneak attack, that can be done. Heavily armored feinting rogue/fighters are definitely a thing, are as Strength based shield slamming rogue types. You just have to realize you won't have as many sneak dice and your damage will generally be lower (plus it won't feel all that 'roguish'). However, you will be far more survivable.

[K'yon Oblodra]

If you are building a rogue heavy build (16+ levels of rogue) and you don't get Epic Precision, Expose Weakness, PTWF and Epic Dodge then you are hurting yourself. Even with all 4 of these epic feats you will struggle against top bosses at max level...In general you will struggle against CR appropriate bosses at all levels. Can you make a build that doesn't have Epic Dodge? Sure! But is there another defensive feat that comes close to it (an equivalent of +5 AC, but better in some cases)? No, you can't. Already explained why PTWF is a must have, but here is a brief explanation of why Epic Precision and EW are also must haves:

I want a rogueish heavy build, was actually thinking about less Rogue levels but more prc levels but only in those rogueish sneak attack type of classes (Assassin, Invisible Blade, Guild Thief and to a lesser extend Wilderness Stalker)

EP: You are weak, your damage is solely reliant on sneak attack damage. Thus, crit/sneak immune enemies with DR will make it so your damage is effectively zero, thus you need an effective way to land sneak attacks, either via feint with god-like bluff stat or through HiPS. You also need some way to damage those crit/sneak immunes...Thus, Epic Precision!

This seems to be an absolute must have.

EW: You are a rogue...Even with 5 levels of IB your AB is going to be crap... Probably somewhere ~35-38 tops (38 if you min max stats, have access to epic gear and use consumables). You want to hit on all 4 sneak attacks next round? You'll need to hit them with EW this round.

This was why I thought about more levels of wilderness stalker (and IB) but it's hard or impossible to place that many prc levels in a good order also this would force me to skip Assassin and I'd need Shadow Dancer of which 5 levels would grant me defensive roll but improved evasion would be missing for epic dodge.

HiPS, Expose Weakness and Epic Precision are the rogues offense. HiPS and Epic Dodge are the Rogue's defense. Doing away with any of these things, IMO would make playing a rogue heavy character unbearable because the servers bosses are already designed to suck for rogues. Any other type of build (fighter types, wizard types, cleric types) have multiple ways to build and be able to handle the majority of server bosses solo (save for balor and white dragon). Not so with a Rogue... They generally can not solo any epic boss outside the Epic Lizard chieftain or Wyrmthrax (but with Wyrmthrax I would think generous use of wands/potions/scrolls will be needed). Take away their most powerful feats and abilities (any of them) and I imagine you will find the class very much not fun to play.

Does it make much sense to add feint to that considering IB gets that mastery fat for that or is it an overkill with hips also you mentioned godly bluff skills being required, is feint really hard to pull off, like do I need tons of bluff gear for it to really work?

Now, if you want a rogue-ish character with SOME sneak attack, but that does not PRIMARILY rely on sneak attack, that can be done. Heavily armored feinting rogue/fighters are definitely a thing, are as Strength based shield slamming rogue types. You just have to realize you won't have as many sneak dice and your damage will generally be lower (plus it won't feel all that 'roguish'). However, you will be far more survivable.

That's something I definetly don't want

My current favorite combination of prcs would be R/GT/IB/Ass. But I guess I can't afford to do that without missing out on epic dodge.

[K'yon Oblodra]

Yet another question, if I could cast some kind of darkness effect like possibly a grenade. Would that allow me to go into stealth even in combat without having HiPS?

I am just asking cause I am considering to to ditch Assassin and since I do not like Shadow Dancer much at all I might just try to go without HiPS entirely.

[Sun Wukong]

In PnP? Sure, go ahead. Heck ask the DM to give a ring of 'Utterly Miniscule Blurriness' with 1% concealment and your promise never to roll it - and you basically got the ability to Hide in Plain Sight wherever.

But in NWN2, BGTSCC, or any other server... I am afraid that things do not work like that. In order to hide in plain sight, you need to either break the line of sight, or get the HiPS feat. Breaking line of sight means that you have to be able to get beyond a corner and then hit your hotkeyed stealth button. Thus... you are one of the few characters that migth be interested in getting the Dash feat for 5% movement speed increase... It is doable, but what you can do will be heavily limited - in which case I would get Weapon Finesse, Shield Proficiency, and ranger feats and start using a sling. A +4 Light Shield gives +5 points of AC and +4 Heavy Shield gives +6 points of AC with just respective -1 and -2 penalties to dexterity based skills....

So, no you won't be able to hide using darkness spell - or anything similar over here. And yes, it is possible to make do without HiPS - it'll just be a lot harder.

[chad878262]

It is possible to go sneak without HiPS, but I highly advise getting the dash feat and taking Bodyguard 3 for a total of 15% movement increase. Hopefully at some point we can buff the custom "Hide in the Shadows" feat to require less than 4 seconds out of combat to give it some usefulness. As it stands I can't recommend that route as it takes quite a lot of movement speed to get far enough ahead of enemies so as to have 4 seconds with which to activate Hide in the Shadows and have it work before the mob catches up.


Invisible Blade requires you to take the Feint feat, so if you go with a build that includes IB you will have feint. The issue with landing it is as follows:

Feint check = 1d20 + Bluff vs. 1d20 + BAB + Spot.

So if you do the math, if a mob has 30 spot and 25 BAB you need 55 bluff to have a 50% chance to land feint. Many mobs in epic areas have ~55 spot and bosses might have ~80. So you need to treat bluff the same way you treat Hide/MS, as in you need bluff gear in every slot to be a feinter. Thus you really have to focus on being a feinter or a HiPSer, but can't really be both since you don't have enough feats to get skill focus/other feats to improve stealth and bluff as well as you would have to carry multiple gear sets and your STR score probably will be prohibitive.

IMO Feinters should generally be heavy armor rogues since they don't have HiPS and high hide/move silently for defense. They need to go for solid AC and maximize the bluff skill to land feint. I think Blackman's Death has a feinter so he can probably provide better advice than me, but suffice to say that you are not going to get good results by trying to be a HiPSter who also uses Feint.

[K'yon Oblodra]

Invisible Blade requires you to take the Feint feat, so if you go with a build that includes IB you will have feint. The issue with landing it is as follows:

Feint check = 1d20 + Bluff vs. 1d20 + BAB + Spot.

So if you do the math, if a mob has 30 spot and 25 BAB you need 55 bluff to have a 50% chance to land feint. Many mobs in epic areas have ~55 spot and bosses might have ~80. So you need to treat bluff the same way you treat Hide/MS, as in you need bluff gear in every slot to be a feinter. Thus you really have to focus on being a feinter or a HiPSer, but can't really be both since you don't have enough feats to get skill focus/other feats to improve stealth and bluff as well as you would have to carry multiple gear sets and your STR score probably will be prohibitive.

IMO Feinters should generally be heavy armor rogues since they don't have HiPS and high hide/move silently for defense. They need to go for solid AC and maximize the bluff skill to land feint. I think Blackman's Death has a feinter so he can probably provide better advice than me, but suffice to say that you are not going to get good results by trying to be a HiPSter who also uses Feint.

Thanks Chad for explaining all this to me. This is very much what I was looking for. Would you say invisible blade is something like a must have or is it less useful if I don't feint at all? I thought the 5 bonus AC and the high BAB might make it very very strong. I've created a build with Rogue/GT/Assassin it however doesn't have epic dodge. Could post it a bit later when I am at a PC.

I've begun to like Guild Thief for its feats and the Sneak Dice. It's also RPwise very much what I am looking for (not to forget the nice 10% on all items from merchants).

I guess I want a hips Rogue so either its 8 levels of Assassin at least or 3 of SD (maybe 5 to grab the defensive roll).

The other thing I was looking at was kukri vs dagger felt like kukri was very nice with improved crit as the bigger crit range would help with the not too great AB.

One last thing that could also still be interesting is the rogue/GT/SD/WS combination. Really like the camouflage and tracking isn't a bad thing either +2 AC if one would get 8 levels.

Any build ideas for the different ideas?

[Sun Wukong]

Rogue 13/Guild Thief 4/Shadowdancer 5/Wilderness Stalker 8?

BAB: 23

Sneak attack: 11d6
Rogue - 7d6
Guild Thief - 2d6
Shadowdancer - ...
Wilderness Stalker - 2d6

Rogue Bonus feats at level 10 and 13: Crippling Strike for Epic Precision and Improved Evasion for Epic Dodge.

Shadowdancer 5 gives us Defensive Roll for Epic Dodge.

Thus, it is a build that has access to Epic Precision, Expose Weakness, Epic Dodge, and Perfect Two-Weapon fighting if you want it.

As for leveling up... at least 3 levels in all classes by level 20... Ugh... it would be easier to just build it... But I do not want to...

So luckily Metaquad4 delivers: http://nwn2db.com/build/?209960 You just swap the last level of Guild Thief into Wilderness Stalker...

[K'yon Oblodra]

Thanks that looks pretty sexy, it doesn't hit the 3 levels of SD before 20 but I'll see if I can fix that somehow.

Rogue 13/Guild Thief 4/Shadowdancer 5/Wilderness Stalker 8?

BAB: 23

Sneak attack: 11d6
Rogue - 7d6
Guild Thief - 2d6
Shadowdancer - ...
Wilderness Stalker - 2d6

Rogue Bonus feats at level 10 and 13: Crippling Strike for Epic Precision and Improved Evasion for Epic Dodge.

Shadowdancer 5 gives us Defensive Roll for Epic Dodge.

Thus, it is a build that has access to Epic Precision, Expose Weakness, Epic Dodge, and Perfect Two-Weapon fighting if you want it.

As for leveling up... at least 3 levels in all classes by level 20... Ugh... it would be easier to just build it... But I do not want to...

So luckily Metaquad4 delivers: http://nwn2db.com/build/?209960 You just swap the last level of Guild Thief into Wilderness Stalker...

[chad878262]

R16/IB5/A9 doesn't take IB for feint, it's really just the+5 AC. If you think you'll be fine without it you can skip.

Regarding the other build, R16/GT4/WS7/SD3 only loses 1 AC, but gains another d6 sneak dice. Which you prefer is your choice, but both will still get epic dodge .