Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

I had an interesting dilemma when browsing Phantom class which I wanted to discuss with you.

Let's say one wanted to make the best "ninja-like" character, meaning ascetic, agile warrior of the shadows.

Phantom would instantly come to mind, I believe cookie-cutter build would be 25 Phantom/5 Shadowdancer. But on the other hand, how about Monk 11/Rogue 10/Assassin 9?

6 death attacks with Blinding Speed, very good saves for a sneaker, good AC with Monk AC, 10d6 sneak attack dice and excellent movement speed. Assassin for invisibility spells. Obviously no Epic Dodge.

Strictly power-wise, which one would you go for? I can't help the feeling that Phantom is a little underwhelming class, and I like this character concept so I was wondering what do you think.

Both the builds you list are very good and there are other options as well such as R16/M5/A9 which will not hit 6 death attacks, but can get Epic Dodge. There are other splits that work as well, such as R13/M11/SD3/WD3 for 3 skill focus feats and dash while still getting epic dodge, but losing death attack. If you don't care about Epic Dodge you could also go Phantom 21/Assassin 9.

IMO you are not going to find some overpowered build when it is a sneak as they are simply not as powerful in PvE as tier 1 or 2 classes and never will be. To me it comes down to an RP decision as to what you are interested in playing.

I recommend skipping epic dodge, especially on a phantom. Reason being is that (as long as you have uses), you can back off and use Phantom 20's ghost Step (uses 2 uses). Phantom 10's ghost walk has a slight delay, while ghost step has no delay to it. You won't be able to keep it up for as long. For generally PvE, I usually kept to HiPs on mine and didn't have too many issues. As long as your trigger fingers are itchy and you have uses, you should be fine.

I did Phantom 21/Assassin 9. Tiefling. It ended up (with full gear) having some low 90s/low 80s hide and move silent. I ended up having room to take skill focus for hide/ms, so that helped some. AB wasn't too much of an issue, except on bosses (which aren't really worth fighting anyway). Bosses you can't really hit well (except for a couple).

It did have kinda crummy saves, so beware of that. Plan to use UMD items to compensate, you'll need to in a few areas where AoEs are thrown around. But, it was both extremely fun and extremely effective with all the right gear.