Stats: It was a lie to say this is all non-ECL races, but the title bars aren't long enough to explain it better. You need a +2DEX race for this to work best, Chultan human being the optimum, but you can use a +1 and rob from STR/CON, or a flat DEX race, also robbing CON/STR and use your open epic feat for Great DEX I and even it out that way. DEX-penalising races are silly to use.
STR: +6 from base DEX: 19 ->26 from all levelups. CON: +6 from base WIS: 0 points INT: 13 CHA: 0 points
Class order: Rogue 1,2,3; Ftr 1,2,3,4; Rogue 4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11; WM 1; Rogue 12(to get the 17th level Tumble AC sweetspot); WM 2,3,4. Rogue12/Ftr4/WM4, which means an annoyingly long wait for the heavy Sneaks and WM goodies, but you need it to maximise AB.
Feats: 1(if Human): Knockdown. If you're not human, you'll have to decide between Blindfight and Knockdown, which to me almost kills this build for every other race, because you can still get both by using your final epic feat, but that is nasty. 1: Dodge 3: Weapon Finesse Ftr1: Weapon Focus Ftr2: Mobility 6: Spring Attack Ftr4: Weapon Specialisation 9: Improved Criticals (if not Human, Knockdown goes here) 12: Expertise Rogue10: Crippling Strike 15: Whirlwind Attack ~Houston we have a Weaponmaster, assuming you took 4 Intimidate on any Rogue level, and if not we have a problem~ 18: Blindfight (if not Human, Improved Crits goes here)
Epic class order: You want to have either WM or Ftr as your last level, so you can max out Discipline, so you'll be levelling without either WM7 crit range or Epic Weapon Spec. I would go always Ftr6 early since the Epic Weapon Spec is so tasty, but I can see an argument for getting to WM7 first if you're using handaxe, which is my shout for best weapon choice, by the by. Therefore my order is:
Rogue 13; Ftr 5, 6; Rogue 14, 15; WM 5; Rogue16; WM 6; Rogue17; WM7. Rogue16/Ftr6/WM7 by close of play
Epic Feats
21: Epic Weapon Focus Rogue13: Improved Evasion Ftr6: Epic Weapon Specialisation 24: Armourskin Rogue16: Defensive Roll 27: Epic Dodge. Sweet, sweet Epic Dodge, and as early as it can be got. 30: [Optional]
Skills: Intimidate: 4 Discipline: 33 Tumble: 30 Hide: 32 Move Silently: 32 UMD: Some Spellcraft: 4, 9 or 14, depending on being Human and the amount of UMD you've taken. Detection: 33. I personally prefer Listen for non-casters, but you can go Spot if you want to use your Optional feat for Epic Skill Focus: Spot. Set Trap: 33 Open Lock: Some Disable Trap: Some
Commentary:
The 44AB in shop gear isn't brilliant, but it's viable, higher than most other Epic Dodgers, and unlike them you have the WM criticals to supply damage to things you're toe-to-toeing with, and Epic Weapon Specialisation when they're immune to crits. Defensively, you've got high 50's for AC in shopbought gear, the counter-intuitively brilliant Epic Dodge, and in PvP you have the ability to run round a corner into sneaky mode and get away from 95% of the server without wearing a scrap of stealth gear.
When you're out and about versus mobs you can Knockdown or in party, then your bouncing 9d6 Sneaks and EWS make you very brutal indeed. The various items with Ambi and Two-weapon Fighting mean you can pop a fifth attack into the mix. This is why I chose handaxe for my guy; Galdorn's Legacy has them both, but so does the Duellist's Parrying Dagger, so that weapon is good too, as Dirk Longstride shows. The rest would need the Balanced Hands, which are fine but suffer the fatal flaw of being gloves and therefore meaning you can't wear Epic Disciplines.
In PvP, the aforementioned cornersneaking, once you have the hang of it, can often be one-round lethal, especially since you have the Set Trap to make chasing after you round corners extremely dicey, assuming you've had any time to prepare the ground. You're the most dangerous thing in the room for the first two rounds, same as I said for STR/Devcrit Weaponmaster when detailing their soup base, but unlike the brute WM, you can get everyone back into flatfoot by disappearing.
Your big downside is Fortitude and even more so Will. It's very hard to get both of them up to workable levels and still have Discipline, DEX and AC, so you're left with the very ropy option of getting Fort up to 38 and praying you'll be fast enough at chugging Mindblank.
If that works, though, you're pretty much the best duellist out there. Eats the STR WM for breakfast. There are specialist anti-Epic Dodge builds that can whomp you, but they're nothing like as effective in PvMob, PvBoss and PvP against everything else.
Roleplay Opinionating:
You're not just a lightfighter, you are a warrior who gains the amazing ability to land hits on vulnerable spots by and only by a deep emotional and spiritual connection to your weapon. As long as that is visible in your RP, then you can do anything like, within the bounds of low WIS and CHA.
For my guy, I went Chultan Human because it's the best and because the human subraces had only recently been implemented. Because I'm a dick, I made his backstory to satirise the resulting wave of white-skinned West European-cultured characters that were actually Chultans, Tuigans, Mulanis etc.
Frank Adegunle Ojukwu was born in Chult and raised there until the age of 6 by his fully Chultan parents and tribe, until Ma and Pa shipped off to Cordor where they first continued to serve the wealthy Cordorian merchant who'd met and employed them back home, and then opened a Tabaxi restaurant in South Cordor upon his death a couple of years later. Frank therefore spent his formative years in the alleys of South Cordor, which is why he sounds like, and indeed is, a Cockney wideboy. He is, however, a two-metre tall jet-black wiry fella with a face and chest covered in ritual scarring and tattoos, because his Mum and Dad hadn't forgotten the old country and still carried on the traditions. During one of his trips home to do the rituals for entering manhood and the tribe, he did a bunch of voodoo stuff that frankly I made up completely but focusses on choosing a totemic animal to be your jungle spirit guide in battle. Frank's was a flying squirrel, which tied best with the handaxe, so when he fights, he goes into a semi-trance state and makes cute little chipmunk sounds. During which you get to see what colour your kidneys are. I also gave him 14 INT and 10STR, putting the three spares into CHA, so while he ended up at 9, he was still a nice fella, if totally useless with names and high society decorum.
I have done a similar build with drow, you just give up the 7th weaponmaster goodies, the level 5 are decent. Obviously it's not as strong but it's easier to be a spotter/listener with due to how elf stealth detection mechanics work and they get the +2 int and +2 dex so the starts are easier to balance out. With drow I picked Rapier for the improved crit rate (over the crit damage a handaxe gives) to compensate for not have 7 weaponmaster levels. Also to me when I think of a dex fighter type that's not a sd, I think rapier/duelist. The exp penalty is a bit of a pain in the ass though.
The wiki lists Epic Dodge as a general feat, so that should be fine. You do get +1AB from taking this route, but I'm not sold on the notion that's worth an epic feat and 2d6 Sneaks.
I also would not want to wait all the way till 12 to get Weapon Finesse. It'll delay WM to put it earlier, but only by two levels, whereas you're looking at 9 levels of slow grind because of the AB problem you'll have from using 14 STR instead of 20+ DEX.
You have Lightning Reflexes but you don't have Knockdown? Madness, to put it bluntly. This build is going to have plenty of Reflex, so even if you did have Knockdown elsewhere, you'd still be better off with either Will or Fort because both of those scores will be poor, albeit the extra Ftr levels will help with Fort compared to the Rogue17 version.
You can't take Epic Weapon Spec on any kind of level but Ftr or Divine Champion; Overwhelming Critical has a bunch of pre-reqs that this build can't get, and as mentioned, you shouldn't boost Reflex when your Fort and Will are so poor.
I guess it's a typo that you've gone from rapier to scimitar in the focus feats, and that you know scimmies aren't Finesse weapons.
What's the actual difference between a Rapier and Scimitar that makes people choose scimitar? They have the same base damage, size, and critical hits, and the Rapier is finessable, so it seems like Rapiers should be more popular than scimitars. Why aren't they?
Joined: 17 Oct 2011 Location: The Hall of the Mountain King
MisterLich wrote:
What's the actual difference between a Rapier and Scimitar that makes people choose scimitar? They have the same base damage, size, and critical hits, and the Rapier is finessable, so it seems like Rapiers should be more popular than scimitars. Why aren't they?
A lot of dex people choose rapiers, ofc, but the reason is that the scimitar is a slashing weapon while the rapier is piercing. Slashing weapons can be keened through magic, and undead often has a higher resistance against piercing than slashing.
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My guess is aesthetics. Scimitar models have always looked more burly than rapiers, so your hulking STR-base doesn't look ridiculous wielding one.
The rapier is a much better supported weapon, though. There used to be a good Vs Outsider scim in the Triumvir, and the last update nerfed the Terza Slayer by making it Cold Vs Orc, ie useless in the Brog caves, and the on-Hits are Fear and Confusion, neither of which are as good as the Daze and Sleep you can find on rapier.
But rapiers look silly on a fullplate beefasaurus.
Your ability scores bit confused me. What would I be aiming for with a non-subrace human?
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"Operating in the border between light and darkness, shadowdancers are nimble artists of deception. They are mysterious and unknown, never completely trusted but always inducing wonder when met"
DEX so that you reach 25 for Epic Dodge in the end. 18 is ideal for a +/-0 DEX subrace, but 17 is also doable with the investment of one or two Epic Dexterity feats. Zero points into WIS and CHA. INT 13 for the WM prerequisites. The rest into STR and CON.
_________________ Every time you clock in the morning, I feel you just want to kill All my innocence while ignoring my purpose to persevere as a better person I know you heard this and probably in fear -Kendrick Lamar, good kid
My guess is aesthetics. Scimitar models have always looked more burly than rapiers, so your hulking STR-base doesn't look ridiculous wielding one.
The rapier is a much better supported weapon, though. There used to be a good Vs Outsider scim in the Triumvir, and the last update nerfed the Terza Slayer by making it Cold Vs Orc, ie useless in the Brog caves, and the on-Hits are Fear and Confusion, neither of which are as good as the Daze and Sleep you can find on rapier.
But rapiers look silly on a fullplate beefasaurus.
That's interesting, I play a Scimmy on the assumption that good Raps are harder to lay hands on. Btw, anything better than the Horn O Doom +3 gearwise? Or am I set?
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