Thanks to Herbie Shimmer, Evo Dragon, and Emrill for their help and suggestions.

“With a motion, the Lich sent his minions around her to prevent her escape. She smiled, bemused. There was something dazzling about her, the way she moved when not moving, the way clothes moved around her blending with the shadows, her dark skin the shadow of her cold white mane. Her beauty weaved in the swathes of shadow, cloth, and desire almost as if she was just a mirage brought on by his troubled mind, his haunted past. Her elvish eyes burned with life – even from afar, he was drawn to her, her life force tantalizing him. His bone jaw almost curled into a smile as he thought of what could have been, being with her when he was counted among the living. . ."

“In an instant, she moved among his undead warriors like a ghost wisping through a haunted room. Each swing she dodged effortlessly – her form everywhere her body wasn’t. After each had swung their weapons a few times and missed, she paused looking at them and smile across her pristine face. If they had breath, they would have gasped. A clear song, like a dirge one plays before love-making, began to echo across the chamber as her sword slithered from its sheaths. Then she was moving again, faster this time, swinging her sword as if she were making love to the shadows. Each swing cleaved a minion – one blow was all she needed, the steel a brief flicker among the carnage."

“Arcane words intoned forth from the Lich, but each spell she dodged lithely jumping a stream of eldritch energy from one side to another. Before he sensed her, she was near him, looking up into his darkness. She smiled, and brought her face close to his as if they were going to embrace – steel flashed in the lich’s periphery as he felt the blade singe through his exposed rib cage. His soul was suddenly ripped down by an inextricable tug. He was able to hold himself there for one more moment. . ."

"He looked into her smiling face as she laid two fingers across the exposed bone of his skeleton face, she was so close he almost thought he could smell her. As the invisible hand of the underworld tensed around his ankle, his soul burned hot – whether from anguish or desire he could not tell – and plummeted to the darkness below. His last memory after a thousand years was the soft humming of her song, gleeful and just, running across his skull down into the ear toward the hollow that was his heart, heavy, moist like dirt across the top of a grave. . . “

This build was intended to do two things: 1) use SD at epic levels, something not done often; 2) have Dev Crit + Epic Dodge + Self-Concealment V.

Elf / Neutral Good

Str 16, ends 26
Dex 19, ends 30
Con 8, ends 10
Wis 8
Int 10, ends 12
Cha 11, ends 13

Adds. Dex (4,8,12,16,20,24,28,32), Str (36, 40)

Level Progression:
Bard 1-5
RDD 6-15
Bard 6 (to catch up skill-wise)
SD 1-16
Bard 7
SD 17-22
Bard 8

Feats:
Lvl 1: Dodge
Lvl 3: Weapon Focus: Rapier
Lvl 6: Power Attack
Lvl 9: Cleave
Lvl 12: Improved Critical: Rapier
Lvl 15: Mobility
Lvl 18: Great Cleave
Lvl 21: Overwhelming Critical: Rapier
Lvl 24: Great Dexterity I
Lvl 27: Great Dexterity II
Lvl 29: Epic Dodge
Lvl 30: Great Dexterity III
Lvl 32: Self-Concealment I
Lvl 33: Devastating Critical: Rapier
Lvl 36: Self-Concealment II & III
Lvl 40: Self-Concealment IV & V

The character winds up with the following skills:
Disc 43, Hide 43, MS 43, Tmb 43, Perf 15, Spell 31, Lore 29

Naked AC 32 + Epic Dodge + SC V (w/ Buffs 40 & another 30% conceal (Shadow Evade) is added possibly though I don't know whether they stack
+33/+28/+23 (BA 24), +38 w/ buffs (Dev Critical has DC 39)
Saves: F20, R32, W22

Pros:
1) Dev Critical w/ Melee
2) Decent buff spells and Bard song
3) AC 32 (40 buffed) w/ Epic Dodge and 50% Concealment + effects of Shadow Evade
5) Breath weapon
6) Lots of skills

Cons:
1) Low Hits (Max 304, average 238 in testing)
2) Low Will and Fort saves
3) Will have hard time w/ very high AC opponents

Thanks for reading. Pretty cool build -- with one major problem. I believe Epic Dodge has Defensive Roll as a prereq. Defensive Roll is a Rogue feat, but you have no rogue levels. And both Epic Dodge and Self Conceal both require Improved Evasion -- also not something your build has taken into account. Please correct me if I'm wrong. It's a freebie from shadowdancer as well. Shadowdancer class gets all the prerequisites for epic dodge on its own

Defensive Roll at level 5 , improved Evasion at level 10.

And yes you need improved evasion for tumble.

Only classes that can qualify for epic dodge are as follows

Improved Evasion
Monk level 9
Shadowdancer level 10
Rogue level 10/13/16/19 bonus feat or epic feat

Defensive Roll
Shadowdancer Level 5
Rogue level 10/13/16/19 bonus feat or epic feat

So pure rogue, pure shadowdancer, rogue/shadowdancer and monk/rogue , monk/shadowdancer could all qualify if they have the right levels.

I love this build, I would never play it myself because (IMO) of the ridiculous wings.

Oh and btw concealment never stacks Im afraid. The best a player can get is 50 percent.

Syrath

Edited By syrath1001 on 07/24/04 23:22

Well, that'll learn me. Those shadowdancer freebies are not listed in the SoU manual.

But it does give me an idea for another character..... hmmm.....
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"What do you fear most in the world?"
"The possibility that love is not enough."
-- Major Garland Briggs, Twin Peaks I was trying this build in my testing mod and found a problem:

Your build calls for Dev Crit at level 33, but it's not until level 35 that your strength is 25.

Here's how I finished up:

33 Bard 7 SC II
34 SD 17
35 SD 18
36 SD 19 (Str +1: 25) SC III, SC IV
37 SD 20
38 SD 21
39 SD 22 SC V, Dev Crit
40 Bard 8 (Str +1: 26)

Now to go test him on my PW!

Kaliban. I tried something very similar and I can tell you the problem with this build - lousy AB. Possibly you could get away with this on a no or very low magic world. Otherwise you'll only hit on a 20 and never crit. AB of +33 isn't what I would consider low. It is fairly on par with most other characters out there. The bigger factor is only 3 main hand attacks a round instead of 4 for a melee based design. He'll have two issues. One is his STR isn't maxed so the dev crit save isn't very high., and two he isn't in the 4 attack per round range. He makes up for some by being hard as hell to hit.
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Click Here An AB of 33 is not on a par with most other builds, presuming we exclude Wiz and Sorc builds. Most other builds will at least have 4 pre-20 levels in a class with full BAB, dex builds will have WFinesse, and most builds will have EWF and EProwess.

I reckon that most builds relying on physical attacks for damage have an AB of around 40 with a non-magic weapon. Plenty of builds will get considerably more.

So, is it worth getting such a low chance to hit, just to get the odd successful dev crit (with the low AB and poor DC the chances of hit, successful crit and failed save must be pretty low against most builds)? My take on this build is that it is more of a 'project build' rather than a true playing build. No criticism intended, but that's my take on it. I think it's pretty cool and good engineering that put dev crit and SC 5 in the same build.

I tried this build in a fast-level PW and found I had a hard time hitting critters at level 40 and didn't get too many Dev Crit blows.

Kaliban. The build I tried was Bard2/RDD10/Rogue28. Similar in many ways, although I think it's a little more efficient (being as you're not really making use of the Bard levels). Same problem though, I couldn't hit enough. And crit didn't happen when I needed it.
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Quote: Posted 11/19/04 21:46:20 (GMT) -- Thorsson64

An AB of 33 is not on a par with most other builds, presuming we exclude Wiz and Sorc builds. Most other builds will at least have 4 pre-20 levels in a class with full BAB, dex builds will have WFinesse, and most builds will have EWF and EProwess.

Outside an arcane archer and not counting attacks per round (because those are rudimentary to the first AB number as we all know), please let me know how you consider a naked AB of 33 low.

Here are my calculations on some naked ABs
+15 pre epic
+10 epic
+2 Epic Weapon focus
+1 Epic Prowess
+10 (for well say having 30 in the stat being use for AB)

Thats a +38, so he's only 5 below there. I don't consider that low. It's not the highest, but it's about average, because not every build will have 30 in a stat used for attacks either. With typical gear that 33 easily becomes a 45 or higher.

I do think he should of worked weapon finess in the build to get those extra +2 to his AB (probably dropping SC V for it. I also don't think whirlwind attack is all that, because it requires a lot of feats to get it.
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Click Here It seems we don't disagree on the facts - just the interpretation. I would see 38 as the minimum - do nothing special and you get this. So the average must be higher, but let's assume it's 38 dead for now.

Whether 38 vs 33 is a big difference depends on a lot of things, but if we presume two similar chars, let's say two versions of this build, one of which has AB33 and the other has AB38, both have an buffed AC of 40, then the AB38 build hits 25% more than the AB33 build (and will have 4 attacks vs 3). 4 hits at 45%/20%/5%/5% vs 3 at 20%/5%/5% is a significant difference. And the difference holds true for quite a wide range of ACs - for lower ACs the difference is even more significant. Very true. This build could squeek a few more AB out of it, but at the cost of either SC feats or feats for whirlwind (which is what I would drop personally). End result is a slightly stronger build at the cost of a gimick attack that won't be used very often.
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Click Here True, but I guess then it's not a Dervish.

But if I was thinking up a build to make maximum use of Whirlwind, Shadowdancer isn't a class that would immediately 'spring' to mind. Erm, I don't know which version you guys are talking about, but the one posted at the top of the thread doesn't take Whirlwind Attack at all. Woops missed it was gone on this one. My bad. That being the case, I would drop great cleave for finesse.
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Click Here But without great cleave, there is no overwhelming or devastating crit... Since, despite the manual's description, weapon focus is not required for dev crit (I think it is listed as a prereq for improved crit...not true), I suggest dropping weapon focus rapier for weapon finesse. You lose one AB from the feat, but gain 2+ from your base dex + any items/cat's grace spells.
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Click Here Can anyone verify that Devcrit wont require weapon focus? This would be a great help as I have always worked it in early and lost pre-epic AB because of it. Thanks.
Quote: Posted 03/03/05 04:28:35 (GMT) -- Deltutammatre

Can anyone verify that Devcrit wont require weapon focus? This would be a great help as I have always worked it in early and lost pre-epic AB because of it. Thanks.

Yar is correct. I just whipped up a halfling Draconic Bard with Dev Crit in Dagger....WITHOUT taking any Weapon Focus feats.

(Not bad....strength of 29 and Dev Crit:Dagger at level 21. That's one nasty hobbit to avoid in a dark alley...)

K.
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