Playable 1-40 in PvE. Reasonably PvPable I think but not built specifically for PvP. An environment without rampant immunities and true seeing is a Good Thing for this character.

No fun story... playing with the wiz/assassin/PM build and realizing that I haven't posted a single arcane caster-as-caster build made me try this out and see what happens.

Raw caster power is sacrificed in this build for stronger defenses and stealth.

Human, Non-Good

Str 8
Dex 14
Con 14
Wis 10
Int 18
Cha 8

1 Wz (1): Dodge, Spell Focus (Necromancy)%
2 Wz (2):
3 Wz (3): Extend Spelld
4 Wz (4): +1 int
5 Wz (5): Greater Spell Focus (Necromancy)%+
6 Wz (6): Mobility
7 PM (1): ((10 hide 10 MS 5 tumble))
8 SD (1): +1 int ((11 hide 11 MS 11 tumble))
9 Wz (7): Empower Spell
10 Wz (8):
11 Wz (9):
12 SD (2): +1 int, Expertise* ((15 hide/MS/tumble))
13 Wz (10): Spell Penetration+
14 Wz (11):
15 Wz (12): Still Spell**
16 Wz (13): +1 int
17 Wz (14):
18 Wz (15): Toughness*, Greater Spell Penetration+
19 Wz (16):
20 Wz (17): +1 int
21 Wz (18): Epic Spell Penetration
22 SD (3): ((25 hide/MS/tumble))
23 Wz (19):
24 Wz (20): +1 int, Epic Spell (Greater Ruin), Epic Spell Focus (Necromancy)+
25 PM (2):
26 PM (3):
27 PM (4): Great Int 1
28 PM (5): +1 int
29 PM (6):
30 Wz (21): Epic Spell (Epic Mage Armor)
31 PM (7):
32 PM (8): +1 int
33 Wz (22): Epic Spell (Epic Warding)
34 PM (9):
35 PM (10):
36 Wz (23): +1 int, Great Int 2, Great Int 3+
37 Wz (24):
38 Wz (25):
39 SD (4): ((20 Discipline, 42 Hide/MS, 40 Tumble)), Epic Skill Focus (Discipline)*
40 Wz (26): +1 int, Great Int 4+

% - due to lack of caster levels for pumping damage dice up, and for theme reasons, this character focuses on necromancy and uses death magic, however it's certainly possible to use evocation instead

* - optional feat but recommended
** - can change to silent spell if you want
+ - wizard bonus feat

Skills - Spellcraft, Concentration, Hide, MS, Tumble, CC Discipline. Plenty left over from that - I was able to max search, spot, and listen and dumped leftover points into Lore.

Unbuffed Ending Vitals:
Int 32

AC 26 + 5 Expertise
316 max hp + deathless vigor bonus (however it's calculated)
Fort 20 Reflex 20 Will 24 (+8 vs spells)

AB +19
Base necromancy spell save DC 27 + spell level

PM benefits include extra AC and hp, but mostly immunity to many attack forms
SD benefits include HIPS, evasion, uncanny dodge, light armor proficiency, and shadow evade

The FAQ:
Q: Isn't your save DC kinda low? Shouldn't you pump intelligence more with epic feats?
A: The save DC isn't that bad though it's several points short of what a pure caster would get. You can get two more points of int out of the build while preserving much of the concept behind it by dropping SD to 1 level and raising wizard to 29 for another bonus feat, then dumping an epic spell (probably greater ruin, maybe epic mage armor) and going to great int 6. But you lose Evasion and Uncanny Dodge.

You have time stop, bigby's, and IGMS if all else fails, of course.

Q: You don't get to take many metamagic feats either, don't you miss maximize spell or anything?
A: Not really, you can't maximize spells of over 6th level, and maximize does nothing to death magic. I get Empower, Extend, and Silent or Still (depends on environment which of those is better).

Q: Why would I play this build over a pure caster?
A: It depends on the environment. In some environments the PM extra defenses and sneakyness will be very effective, in others they might not be so good. This character is something of a "sneaky war wizard" - you don't necessarily have to try to keep your distance from most enemies with him - you're immune to dev crit and to sneak attacks.

If you are more used to a melee playstyle and want a build that's relatively forgiving as an arcane caster this might be attractive. You still can't actually melee worth a darn, but you can survive being meleed pretty well.

Q: Why 4 levels of shadowdancer?
A: The third and fourth levels are for skill dumps, the SD abilities you get at them won't be very useful to you. But you will, at least, have them available in case you need them.

Q: This build gets a lot of inherent summons - familiar, SD shadow, PM undead. Are they worth anything?
A: The prestige class summons are worthless as anything except distractions in this build. With an Eyeball familiar you can get some good combat power or with a pixie familiar you can have locks and traps taken care of for you without memorizing find traps or knock.
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Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.

Edited By griphook on 10/30/05 23:01

A discipline of 30 isnt anything to right home about. So the level 39 feat epic skill focus is wasted IMO. The DC of the discipline check is the attack roll. The discipline roll you will make is 50. Not a very good chance for making the roll at all. Especially since your armour should be higher than 50 AC at that level.

In a low magic world where the attackers had low ABs (like AB 35 at level 40) then I could maybe see the use of it.

Syrath
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It's SHADOWDANCER, dammit, shadowdancer!!! Pretty good point on discipline, but I had plenty of skillpoints and didn't have many other feats I'd rather have taken really. For PvP purposes a discipline check of +30-ish won't help you against an RDD or a weaponmaster - but it might help you against a monk or a rogue. For PvE purposes, sometimes mobs do try to KD you, and not all of them will match even a low-ish discipline check.

But you're absolutely right about low and mid-low magic worlds being the pond this fish belongs in. It gets a few good tricks, but those tricks are eclipsed by high magic equipment (immunity items, true seeing items). It's not built for PvP but should have a decent chance in most worlds.

Even without items, of course, a pure build like the Exalted Sorceress is more powerful in many regards, PvP especially.
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Experience is the mother of good judgement; bad judgement is the father of experience.
Quote: Posted 10/24/05 22:04:37 (GMT) -- Xylophone

Pretty good point on discipline, but I had plenty of skillpoints and didn't have many other feats I'd rather have taken really. For PvP purposes a discipline check of +30-ish won't help you against an RDD or a weaponmaster - but it might help you against a monk or a rogue. For PvE purposes, sometimes mobs do try to KD you, and not all of them will match even a low-ish discipline check.

But you're absolutely right about low and mid-low magic worlds being the pond this fish belongs in. It gets a few good tricks, but those tricks are eclipsed by high magic equipment (immunity items, true seeing items). It's not built for PvP but should have a decent chance in most worlds.

Even without items, of course, a pure build like the Exalted Sorceress is more powerful in many regards, PvP especially.

Yeah but the point is that if your AC =50 (fairly low AC for a level 40 character). So if a monster (AB=25) hits you its attack roll =45. (1 in 20 chance).

Your DC against with the discipline check =45. So you need to roll 15 to avoid the knockdown. So the monster has a 1 in 20 chance to knock you down.

Against a more realistic AB of lets say 45/50 or more the DC is going to be somewhere around 60/70 which a discipline of 30 isnt exactly going to help you with.

If your AC > Discipline +20 then its hardly worth wasting points in discipline. If you are in a low magic world and your level 40 AC <40 then it might be worthwhile. Even putting Epic Skill Focus (Spellcraft) would give you an additional +2 saves vs spells. Which would be far more useful than putting points in discipline that still dont give you enough skill to avoid the attacks 80-95% of the time.

Syrath
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It's SHADOWDANCER, dammit, shadowdancer!!!