Min/Max Boards

Well every DM should have anything that can manage true seeing use the effect if it A) knows illusions exist and B) wants to be able to trust what it sees. So I guess gogo sneaky totemists?

Also, the thread should be renamed X handbook, Y handbook and Z handbook Discussion so people using search+find know this is the right place.

Point taken on the thread title.

As far as stealth goes, the best options out there are either 1) Play an Illusionist and pray your DM never uses True Seeing or 2) Play a skill monkey class and pray you never roll badly. The Totemist presents a third option: Buff the everlasting crap out of your stealth abilities and then ignore the die rolls entirely by turning Ethereal (heh). But there's also some extra options, and Sneak Attack loves having multiple attacks. So here's a quick overview of how to be super sneaky in a way even spellcasters would respect.

Classes: Obviously you want to be a Totemist for most of your career, but you can also just dip Totemist 2-4 if you are planning a scout-focused character (you just lose out on Chakra Binds unless you spend feats late-game). It is important to not that you don't get Hide/Move Silently at all without multiclassing or spending feats, so here are some options.

Rogue: Rather meh, as you can also choose Psionic Rogue (or even Lurk) to get the skills (never go Lurk BTW; Psionic Rogue is strictly better). The is pretty much the best option if the DM disallows Psionic Rogue and ToB. Additionally, it is worth noting that this is pretty much your only option for bypassing Undead/Construct immunity as this is the only class that gets the Penetrating Strike class feature in Dungeonscape.

Ninja: Sudden Strike is so much worse than Sneak Attack, but it is still tenable. The invisibility is nice, but you have better options there (see Soulmelds). the AC bonus is cool, but only really useful if you want to save your Belt slot.

Lurk/Psionic Rogue: Go for the latter if at all possible. Psionic Sneak Attack only functions while you are Psionically focused, so you don't want it over the regular thing.

Swordsage: A 4-level dip in this class, at the right time, can give you the Assassin's Stance and a nice bonus to AC. The maneuvers can be otherwise spent on buffing your survivability through Diamond Mind, or giving you mobility through Desert Wind, or gaining some extra attacks with Tiger Claw. Always put your free Weapon Focus into Tiger Claw, as you will be shaping the Girallon Arms with this route.

Umbral Disciple: Once you meet the qualifications this class can be a decent 3-level dip, but I recommend just sticking to Totemist levels for this. The HiPS it provides can be replicated with a Soulmeld outside of enemies with True Seeing.

Races: See above. Most of your racial choices won't change; the Kobold, Skarn, and Rilkan are your best bets here. Warforged aren't as practical, but the sheer size of your Hide/Move Silently bonus is going to negate the penalties (even with Adamantine Body).

Items: A big, obvious problem you're going to run into is the cost of an Amulet of Natural Weaponry. The solution is simple: Don't go +10 on it. A +4 Amulet (Vicious, Merciful, Deadly Precision [hopefully your DM allows the CAdv version]) provides a significant damage bonus without eating 90% of your WBL. Most of your items should be focused on buffing your stats, but look into ones that give you extra natural attacks (grafts or the Fanged Mask, for example).

Bracers of the Hunter (SoX): You may need to burn an extra 5K to give this item the ability to bypass your Totem Chakra if you are using the Girallon Arms, but it's an extra +1d6 Sneak Attack.

Rogue's Vest (MIC): Another +1d6, but you usually won't need to worry about the Chakra slot.

Mantle of the Predator (MIC): Another +1d6, but not explicitly Sneak Attack. You may need the Chakra slot benefit.

Feats: Craven goes without saying. It is imperative to get that. Indigo Strike is... less so. Otherwise just look to the standard Totemist options, and occasionally the Rogue stuff.

Overall Build: Totemist 18/Swordsage 2 gets you Sneak Attack through Assassin's Stance without giving up, Totemist 17/(Psionic) Rogue 3 gives you Sneak Attack+Penetrating Strike, and that's pretty much it. You can end up with a psuedo-Sneak Attack of +9d6 and a significant number of attacks/round, easily capable of annihilating enemies that you can Sneak Attack. You can also turn Merciful off if it gets to be a hindrance.

Soulmelds: A note that the Manticore Belt's ranged attack requires a DM's ruling as to if it is considered a volley attack or not. Personal experience is that most DMs will say it is, in which case you go for the Landshark Boots or Girallon Arms.

Threefold Mask of the Chimera: Inferior to the Landshark Boots or Girallon Arms on almost all accounts. The head bind gives you psuedo-pounce, but that is obtainable elsewhere.

Displacer Mantle: Honestly, if you're going for a reach option, just use the Manticore Belt. Volley or no, it is just plain more helpful to you.

Girallon Arms: All day, every day. 4 free attacks, an enhancement bonus on each, Tiger Claw favored weapon bonuses, really you just tear into things. The Landshark Boots only get the 4 attacks when you move, and prohibit additional natural weapons, so they are less effective (but still viable).

Unicorn Horn: Not quite the best Totem Bind, as there is a graft that gives you a gore attack, but in a pinch you can use this for an extra natural weapon.

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Quote from: SorO_Lost on September 09, 2016, 06:54:33 PM

Quote from: Endarire on September 09, 2016, 04:56:26 PM

Well I guess.

Are you sure it's not because a 3rd level Spell is worth two 2nds or a CR4 is considered to be twice as hard as a CR2 but a Feat is simply a Feat. On it's own it can often be equally taken at the 1st level as the 18th and thus was never given anything other than linear progression in a game that uses exponential growth?

Pretty sure this is the reason.  It's just because most feats don't scale at all, and most of those that do don't scale well.

Take Weapon Focus, for example.  At level 1, it's actually a decent pick.  At level 9, it's rarely making a difference and at level 18, it's completely negligible and you are hating yourself for wasting a slot on it.

Eww. Weapon Focus is only useful if you literally have no other methods of boosting your attack rolls. Almost every build has better options than WF (close-range Archers have PBS, Shape Soulmeld can provide several different attack bonuses, even Devotion feats are better due to sheer versatility).

I saw someone on GitP say that "Any feat that provides less value than a +2 bonus to a stat is worthless". A good sentiment IMO.

It can also serve to increase the hype of a BBEG, instead of a generic "oh he was banished by such and such" you could be like "He who we cannot name is not a silly pun as he is in fact an unnamed creature. The gods them selves banished him from the world for his deeds in such a way that the reality rejects the very presence of his true name. It cannot be said for it cannot be known."

Quote from: Sinfire Titan on September 02, 2016, 11:11:19 PM

Chaotic Spell Recall: 1/day/2 Abyssal Heritor feats you possess you can use a Swift action to regain an expended spell that has the Chaotic descriptor. Due to prereqs it's usable 2/day at the start, and you can use Embrace the Dark Chaos (don't need Shun at all) to get more uses without sacrificing your build's feat selection. At half the cost of the normal DCFS effects.

I don't understand how Embrace the Dark Chaos gets you more uses.  You can change your feats but you still have the same number of feats, thus the same number of chaotic spell recall uses.  What am I missing?

Embrace lets you trade out feats for more Heritor feats, and Chaotic Spell Recall can be used 1/day/2 Heritor feats.

And SorO:

Weapon Proficiency: Elves receive the Martial Weapon Proficiency feats for the longsword, rapier, longbow (including composite longbow), and shortbow (including composite shortbow) as bonus feats.

You covered Scribe Scroll. All that's needed are some class-granted bonus feats that don't have a value to you to shuffle away. Several PrCs grant such things, or Monk 1 to grant 2 bonus feats.

Quote from: snakeman830 on August 31, 2016, 10:54:15 PM

Wouldn't that disqualify you from prior racial requirements when you change Race?

Not really.

As discussed in the FAQ thread, creating a false dilemma from a totalitarian ruling drawn from misunderstanding creates complications in the rule base. In other words, hard ruling an over emphasis on the wrong parts of CW's entry invalidates entire PrCs like the Dragon Discipline and Ur-Priest as well as a specific ruling of the FAQ. A more accurate interpretation, that doesn't ignore rules, would at least concede that a PrC cannot invalidate it's self and if it would void another many benefits are not lost.

Quote from: Sinfire Titan on August 31, 2016, 11:45:18 PM

Needing to see the item is trivial (Scry the item you want to duplicate, then make the utterly irrelevant Spellcraft check to ID it).

Scry works on creatures, not items, and most other forms of remote sensing require what amounts to an already stocked up safe house.

A safe house that someone paid for. So why not just stack your scrolls on a shelf in a portable hole to shove your head in as needed?

We could use some of the various Affiliations that allow you to borrow magic items to get "free" scrolls of any relevant price.

reading on Shaper of form;

can reproduce magical effect with spellcraft check for a thing they see. sounds very restrictive.

checking bunkos, lots of fun if your dm is liberal w/ the spellcraft thing.

then it dawned on me, scrolls... very few (the really good ones) are over the 6k price floor. very handy... for a cohort

Ok, duplicating a 1/day scroll of any level is stupidly broken. The most expensive scrolls are well out of range of this ability, but a scroll of Gate isn't (although that's almost the same price as a Candle of Invocation anyway).

A Truenamer can recreate the item if it breaks upon use (spell tiles).

The Shaper of Form (DraComp) is a rather mediocre class to take to 10th level, but a 1 level dip gives a stupidly abusive class feature: Like Begets Like.

It doesn't do much; it lets you turn one object into another with some fairly strict regulations on what can be done (think FMA's alchemy). I makes one stupid little caveat that utterly breaks the class: it can be used to double the value of any item permanently. That 100gp cost for Identify? Halved if you use the ability once. Quartered for twice. Balking at the cost of True Res? Just give a SoF a couple of days. Goodbye WBL problems! These are permanent changes.

Also the 6th level class feature lets you create magic items at no cost, up to 1,000gp per SoF level. But that costs 3 levels of spellcasting if you want it (although non-full casters can qualify for this class fairly easily). The item lasts for 1 round/level, but whatever. And getting that 6th level gives you either 1 or 2 additional daily uses of the Like Begets Like ability.

Edit: Just saw the capstone: No save, no SR single-target Disjunction (item only). That's outright broken if you can tank the CL loss (an Ur-Priest can qualify for it).

Quote from: Sinfire Titan on August 30, 2016, 03:27:39 PM

Quote from: Amechra on August 30, 2016, 02:19:47 PM

Also, an odd question: am I wrong in thinking that an Arcane spellcaster with the Arcane Disciple feat can qualify for Sovereign Speaker? I don't have Faiths of Eberron, but it looks like being able to cast Divine spells is a requirement of neither Worldly Focus nor Sovereign Speaker.

If so... how many Domains would you be willing to add to your spell list in exchange for caster levels?

No, it requires divine casting (and only progresses divine casting).

You're exactly correct that it only advances divine spellcasting, but it only requires Kn(Rel) 8, access to any one domain, and the Worldly Focus feat. That only requires that you worship the Sovereign host.

If you're saying that Arcane Disciple doesn't actually provide 'access' to the domain the spells are granted from, then I see your point. Though it's not completely out of bounds to read it either way, IMO.

Now, only a caster of cleric spells gets any utility out of the benefit of the WF feat, namely that you can cast cleric spells without a divine focus, but the Wiz could take it and perhaps Arc. Disc. or Divine Oracle, and get into S.Spkr. He'd just get the domain access and no effective caster class levels granted.

Able to cast divine spells, must worship the Sovereign Host without favoring one god over the others, access to at least one cleric domain (Eberron adepts meet this requirement).

If you're referencing D&D Tools, be aware that the text is incomplete in multiple articles. This is the text copied straight from a PDF.