Min/Max Boards

"per the Rules Compendium, but doesn't stack levels with Death Attack classes." Rules Quote? I went through all of RC looking for "Race", "racial", and "death" but found nothing of the sort. It seems to me that everything stacks but only some mention it, similar to sneak attack.

Yeah, what Linklord said - when I wrote the Rules Compendium thing, I was talking about the DC formula:

Sandstorm gives Death Attack a flat DC 13.
RC gives extraordinary ability DCs equal to 10+1/2 HD+Cha.
Sandstorm's specific implementation doesn't explicitly contradict the general RC rule, so the RC formula should hold true.

As far as DC stacking between Marrulurk and Death Attack classes, there's no listed formula or protocol, so I try to hold to the most conservative assumptions in online discussions, which in this case would be DC = max(10+Class Level+Int, 10+1/2 HD+Cha).

I'm not sure how they'd stack if they were supposed to - they don't have the same base stat and neither has language even referencing stacking - so I personally wouldn't incorporate HD and class levels into the same formula, but I don't think there's explicit language going one way or the other.

Could you say what you think should be in it that isn't in the existing psion and wizard guides?

Cool guide!

I threw a similar sort of guide over on gitp that went over SM and its SLAs. That guide didn't center on the Binder and it was more focused on summarizing a wide breadth of options than going into depth on anything, but if you're looking for a second opinion on something, it'll probably be there.

And one issue I've heard brought up since I wrote that is that there's apparently a bit of a controversy over whether the summon subschool's limits on summoned monsters' spell durations applies to their SLA durations as well. Mostly it's just a question of how deep SLAs' "works just like the spell of that name" clause goes. I don't know if it's going to be worth addressing, but it's an issue that your entries also bring up.

Wow, at first glance it looks excellent! If I have time to look it over more carefully, I'll try to give more detailed feedback, but no promises (time is a precious commodity).

Mentioning something about "IP Proofing" might be a decent idea, since you specifically said something about picking up immunities to "shore up" some of the assassin's weak spots.

Thanks. 

Digging around Google for that guide or other indices, that topic looks like it got a lot of flak. But I'll see what I can scrounge up.

You might also want to list the Avenger class, which is the same as Assassin but can be Good since the class is based on service to the city, state, etc.

I mentioned that in the variant Assassin section, but didn't go into much depth. I'm digging around for feats or PrCs that the Avenger has that the Assassin can't get otherwise, but I'm not coming up with much: So far Sacred Strike, Daggerspell Mage, Raptor Arrows, maybe Holy Weapons without UMD. I'll start book-diving when I have a chance, but any other ideas would be welcome.

Reserved

Hey everybody,

This is the discussion topic for the 3.5 Assassin's Handbook. If you have any suggestions for inclusion, or any bones to pick with the entries I included, please post them here.

Any feedback would be very welcome. 

8: Sneak Attack Mini Guide

Sneak Attack has the potential to be a very powerful damage source, but it is highly susceptible to immunities and tactical avoidance, and often comes with low attack bonuses (due to combinations of middling base attack bonuses, penalties accrued by additional attacks and by conflicting attribute priorities).

This part of the guide will attempt to break down how to force sneak attack conditions, how to penetrate immunities, how to make multiple attacks in a round and how to make them hit reliably.

FORCING SNEAK ATTACK
The two primary ways of forcing sneak attack are flanking a target and denying it its Dexterity bonus to AC.

Flanking is straightforward. Get on the other side of a target from an ally and hit them in melee. Most parties will have other melee range characters, pets or summons to flank with. If they don't, a sidekick is only a feat or two away (Wild Cohort, Shape Soulmeld: Necrocarnum Circlet + Open Least Chakra or the insane Leadership/Undead Leadership/Dragon Cohort line of feats, if they're campaign-legal), or can be inexpensively bought with some GP (either by just buying a pet or grabbing an inexpensive Desert Wind Cloak for Distracting Ember's 1/encounter 1-round flank buddy). It can also be accomplished with the Distracting Attack Ranger ACF, which has an awkward bit of phrasing that may allow a character with 4 ranger levels to flank with himself.

Denying Dex to AC is a bit more involved. This can be divided further into two approaches: becoming invisible and inflicting status effects. Of the DMG conditions that deny a character's Dexterity bonus to armor class, few are directly available to the Assassin without obnoxiously low saves or sabotaged action economy. But in broad strokes, the conditions that permit sneak attack are: Blind, Feinted, Flat-Footed, Grappled, Helpless, Paralyzed, Stunned.

Becoming invisible can deny targets their Dex bonus to AC. Practical ways to use this in combat include:

• Cloak of Deception (ToB): Swift boost for a full round of greater invisibility. If you learn the maneuver through a pair of Least Shadow Hands, it's 3k to use 1/encounter forever. Very good value.
  
• Greater Invisibility: Relatively high-level spell, and comes with a standard action casting time, but the most direct way to get the job done.
  
• Invisible Fist (EoE): Monk ACF for immediate invisibility for a full round, every 3 rounds. Very useful defense, but also an easy way to force a full round's sneak attack.
  
• Ring of Blinking: A bit pricey, and comes with a 20% failure chance on your attacks, but fantastic defensive and utility benefits and permanently deny targets their Dex to ACs.
  
• Swift Invisibility (SpC): 30 gp for a wand charge to force one sneak attack against creatures that can't see invisibility. Relatively inexpensive as a backup Dex-denial plan, and already a useful tool for its defensive and utility benefits.
  

Status effects can be easily achieved through these methods:

• Blind: Dust Eggshell grenades from Oriental Adventures are cheap (10gp/ea) and provide multi-round blindness with a ranged touch attack; these are especially useful for ranged builds to throw on their lowest iterative attacks. Red Tidewater from the Planar Handbook could work as a lower-powered fallback.
  
• Feinted: Feinting is difficult for many sneak attackers to incorporate into full attack routines, but Invisible Blade, Scarlet Corsair, Beguiler and Assassin [see Insightful Feint and Absorb Weapon spells] all have class features that can combine with Surprising Riposte to make targets flat-footed at the cost of a swift action, which can turn this into a viable combat strategy
  
• Flat-Footed: This status is automatically applied to every attack before the target takes a move, so that usually means anything that helps get the surprise round (stealth abilities like skill ranks, Darkstalker, Rings of the Darkhidden, etc.) and initiative (Cunning Insight, Illumian Uur Sigil, etc.) will help apply this condition, as will the Distract Assailant spell (albeit at a low DC). Additionally, flat-footed status can be inflicted by forcing a target to make balance checks; this can be done with Marbles (A&E), Lard (Dung) or the Grease spell – the disadvantage to all of these is that they either require prep time or compete with attacks for a sneak attacker's standard actions.
  
• Grappled: The easiest way to inflict grappled conditions is to bring a mook into a fight to grapple for you. The Wild Cohort feat is an easy, cheap and usually acceptable way to bring a grappler into a fight, but its grapplers tend to be weak.
  
• Paralyzed: The Assassin's Death Attack can inflict Paralyzed status as an alternative to direct death, as can the Bloodfreeze Arrow spell (CoR, but note the very low DC). This can also be viable for sneak attackers with Monk levels and the Freezing the Lifeblood feat (CWar)
  
• Stunned: Stunning Fist and Sudden Stunning Weapons (DMG2) are the most typical ways for a sneak attacker to inflict Stunned status, but it's a pretty common side effect of illusion and lightning spells.

Many of these can also be achieved by using your party. The rest of your group is probably engaging the baddies, and there's a good chance what they're doing can be turned into a sneak attack: a Fighter that runs into melee sets up a flank; a grappler denies enemies their dex bonus; the Glitterdust, Hold Person or Grease spell that a caster throws at the enemies also makes them vulnerable for sneak attack. The point isn't to beg your allies for free stuff, but there's a good chance your allies are doing something you can use: even if your go-to Dex-denial strategy isn't working in a fight, you might be able to use the other events going on in the battlefield.

There are other ways of forcing sneak attack, but they're generally inefficient. Try not to need them:

• The Telling Blow feat (PHB2) turns a critical hit into a sneak attack. The most common scenario, using something like Keen Kukris, will only threaten on about a third of its attacks; a crit-focused build like Disciple of Dispater will still threaten less than half the time. Investing resources into forcing SA through one of the other modes produces greater damage with greater reliability. This is a bit less blatantly impractical with low-level ranged builds, but eggshell grenades are still inexpensive and more reliable.
  
• The Persistent Attacker ambush feat (CSco) costs a huge chunk of sneak attack, and only forces one SA in the subsequent round. Between the SA dice cost and the single sneak attack that using the tactic permits, expected damage is greatly reduced.
  
• The Vital Strike spell (CMag) costs a swift action to force a sneak attack with one of your attacks in a round. It should be clear that one sneak attack in a round is going to be worth much less damage than more than one sneak attack in a round, which is why this spell isn't particularly useful. (Its one advantage is reliably slathering on SA-triggered status effects
  
• The Wracking Touch spell (SpC – not on the Assassin's list, but available via wand) also forces sneak attack damage with a touch attack. The spell's one advantage is that the charge can be held to force that sneak attack without eating in-combat actions, but again, being in a position to full attack with SA dice on all of the round's attacks is going to deal much more damage than sneak attacking once.

PENETRATING SA IMMUNITIES

There are two really easy ways to penetrate sneak attack immunities:

• The Penetrating Strike Rogue ACF (from EtCR, Dung) allows half sneak attack damage against flanked SA-immune targets. The downsides are that reading strictly, this isn't sneak attack damage, so it doesn't trigger things like ambush feats or craven, it's only half damage, and it's specific to flanks, so dex-denial strategies don't work with it. The upsides are that Penetrating strike doesn't cost any actions, comes almost free with 3 Rogue levels and that it doesn't care why its target's immune; it just works.
  
• Wands of X-strike from SpC are dirt cheap, and allow Plants, Constructs and Undead to all be sneak attacked for full SA damage, even at a range. The downsides are that the spells aren't on the Assassin spell list, the wands occupy either a hand or a wand chamber (Dung), take a swift action to activate and are very specific to the sources of a creature's SA-immunity. These work best with a wand bracer (Dung) for easy access to the full array of wands, even if its swift-action draw effectively leaves sneak attack disabled for the first round of combat.

Some less effective ways of penetrating SA immunity include:

• The Razing Strike feat, which acts as a mini-Arcane strike, plus SA against a creature type determined by whether the sacrificed spell was arcane (then constructs) or divine (then undead). Overall, the feat is very shoddy, unless the campaign is heavily laden with encounters of the specific creature type.
  
• Greater Truedeath/Destruction Crystals (MIC): Expensive, creature type-specific, takes up a weapon augment slot and requires a +3 weapon to enhance, but doesn't require any levels or activation time.
  
• Deathstrike Bracers (MIC): Not particularly expensive and apply to almost all crit-immune creature types, but a very tight daily limit (3 rounds/day).
  

Concealment is also an automatic SA shutoff. There are several ways around it, but the most direct is just denying concealment. This may be achieved through Magic Items (eg. Blindfold of True Darkness, Blindsighted weapon, Revealing weapon), spells/powers (eg. Ebon Eyes, Touchsight) or permanent build resources like Shape Soulmeld (Shadow Mantle) + Open Lesser Chakra (Shoulder).

A less efficient way of circumventing the limitation is the CMage Critical Strike spell, which ignores concealment for a single attack. Applying the bulk of sneak attack damage to a single attack is antithetical to the most damaging strategies, so sensory concealment-negation will typically be more desirable.

MULTIPLE ATTACKS

The more attacks you can make while sneak attacking, the more sneak attack damage you do. That much is pretty simple. The complicated part is building for extra attacks, then making it work tactically. This guide gives a quick list of ways to increase a character's attacks per round. For most Assassins' purposes, there are three main directions for maximizing attacks per round:

• Volley Archery: The major advantages are that full attacks are easy for you to make, and that full attacks are hard for your targets to make against you. The major disadvantage is that sneak attacks are more difficult to force than they would be by engaging in melee. Most extra attacks with this approach come from Rapid Shot, haste, the Splitting weapon enhancement and Arrow Demon polymorphs (not practical with the Assassin's levels and class features, but with a wand, skin of the proteus, phylactery of change or UMDed custom runestaff, it can be more practical).
  
• Two Weapon Fighting: Low-hanging fruit for melee attacks. The notable downsides are high dex requirements (typically means Weapon Finesse, ranged combat or item-reliance on Feycraft gear) and attack penalties to all of a round's attacks. The upsides are relatively straightforward access and a certain degree of flexibility between melee and ranged combat. This style is complemented most directly by Swordsage or Warblade dips for Tiger Claw boosts.
  
• Natural Weapons: For melee-focused sneak attackers, these usually pay off the most directly. Their major advantage over TWF is their reduced penalties: while attacking with natural weapons, every attack is made with the same modifier, with a static reduction from the full bonus. This means a sneak attacker can both make a lot of attacks in a round, and expect them to have a good chance of hitting. The disadvantages are that more attacks mean higher enhancement costs, and that ranged combat becomes more difficult (essentially requiring Blood Wind). These are most easily obtained through Alter Self and class dips (especially Totemist). Note that when used alongside a weapon, they do not override a character's iterative attacks from Base Attack.

Note that the first two setups are one Quickdraw feat away from becoming competent throwers, which is salient for several angles of a sneak attacker's routine, namely Master Thrower and grenade weapons' Touch attack resolutions, and the delivery of other alchemical weapons like tanglefoot bags and eggshell grenades.

FORCING HITS

The potential problem is that if a character can't hit, the character can't sneak attack. Catching someone in a position to sneak attack often accompanies a +2 bonus and targets flat-footed AC, but with sneak attackers' low attack bonuses, that's sometimes not enough. There are two major ways to increase hit chances: Increase your character's attack bonus or decrease the target's AC.

Increasing attack bonus is something most characters do. I'll assume most of it's going on already, by accumulating the normal weapon and ability enhancement gear, vying for tactical bonuses in combat from flanking, higher ground, etc. Devotion feats (Law and Knowledge especially), Rage clones (Barbarian's Rage or Ferocity, Wildrunner's Wild Scream, etc.) and ToB's Discipline weapons are very fast ways to boost those numbers up.

Decreasing target ACs is most directly and most efficiently done by making touch attacks, such as those facilitated by Wraithstrike, those associated with grenade weapons, Master Thrower's Weak Spot thrown weapon trick, or those associated with spells like Flame Dagger or Ice Axe. Common status effects also reduce the target's AC, such as entangled, prone, or many of the conditions that trigger sneak attack vulnerability.

6: ITEMS

MAGIC ITEMS
I assume you're already going to grab items that just give numeric bonuses to the numbers you care about: saves, AC, intelligence, constitution, your primary combat ability and so forth. This is a menu of interesting Assassin-complementary abilities you can fit between those.

      
BASIC SPELLS-AS-ITEMS UTILITY BELT
ALCHEMICAL WEAPONS
With the Assassin's typically middling attack bonus, these attacks are invaluable for turning a thrower's last iterative attacks, which would otherwise have a low chance of hitting or damaging a target, into ranged touch attacks for debuffs or elemental sneak attack.

• Alchemical Sleep Gas (FRCS): Make an attack to knock someone out. Lowish save (DC 15 Fort), but cheap effect.
  
• Atramen Oil (PlH): Ranged touch attack for a hefty penalty to Fort saves, no save. Useful for setting up for poison or death attacks.
  
• Eggshell Grenade, Dust (OA): 10gp. A no-save Blind effect from an attack action makes this a must-have for throwers and archers.
  
• Red Tidewater (PlH): Blindness as a ranged touch attack. More expensive than dust eggshell grenades, and allows a save. Only useful as fill-ins if the eggshell grenades are nerfed or banned.
  
• Tanglefoot Bags: Entangled status as a ranged touch attack with no save, plus chances of immobilization or flight-disablement. These are a little spendy to throw in bulk, at least until high levels, but they are consistently useful.
  
• Torch Bug Paste (CSco): Nonmagically negate concealment with an attack action. These are pretty cheap and just get better and better as concealment methods become more common.
  
• Damage Grenades (misc): They come in different prices and slightly varying prices, but they're pretty much all the same: Ranged touch attack thrown weapons that deal ignore DR. Expensive at low levels, but eventually very useful to stock up on, to get through high DR or ACs.
  • Acid Flask: The cheapest, most utilitarian and least-often resisted of the energy grenades. Useful out of combat to burn through locks or other obstacles.
    
  • Alchemist's Fire/Frost/Spark (ECS): More expensive than acid flasks, but target different defenses. At worst, it's worth stocking a couple for when acid doesn’t work.
    
  • Holy Water: Damages scary and frequently energy-resistant/immune enemies like Evil Outsiders and Undead.
    
  • Anachic/Axiomatic/Unholy Water (PlH): Like Holy Water, but for other flavors of Outsider. Useful for punching through energy resistances on the scariest targets.
    
  • Acidic Fire (ECS): Expensive double-threat. Maybe useful if you don't have a party bookworm to tell you which energy type to use, but generally, the single-element grenades are good enough.

LEGACY ITEMS

The Legacy item subsystem is a quirky subsystem introduced in Weapons of Legacy, which seems to try to make players hate it, with stat penalties, gold-sinks and a book full of terrible examples. But the system does provide a way for non-casters and minor casters to reliably access magic in various forms at a frankly low gold cost. I will address the legacy abilities salient to an Assassin. For more information, see the general guide to establishing a legacy here.

4: FEATS

GENERAL:

• Able Learner (RoD): Buy all skill ranks for one skill point. A skillmonkey's staple. Especially with the Assassin's skill requirements and the incentive to go into some classes with less useful skill lists.
  
• Crossbow Sniper (PHB2): Add partial Dex to ranged damage with a crossbow and sneak attack from 60 feet. All the feat taxes needed to make this combat style viable (Crossbow Sniper+Rapid Reload or Hand Crossbow Focus+the usual ranged combat feats) make it less than ideal, but this feat at least gives a reason to give crossbows a second look.
  
• Darkstalker (LoM): Sneak around regardless of all the special sensory abilities that might prevent you from sneaking around. If stealth is related to your character in any way, you'll want this.
  
• Hand Crossbow Focus (DotU): Weapon Focus and Rapid Reload mixed into one for hand crossbows. If you're using a crossbow (even a Great Crossbow), you probably want this (though weapons other than actual hand crossbows need an Aptitude enhancement for compatibility).
  
• Keen Intellect (UE): Use Intelligence for Will saves and Spot/Listen. Stat consolidation is always good, and this doesn't leave a lot of reasons to keep a good wisdom score.
  
• Mindsight (LoM): If you have telepathy, this feat lets you perceive anybody with a mind. For scouts in general (not the class), this is amazing, but the Assassin has some hoops to jump through to satisfy the telepathy requirement.
  
• Obtain Familiar (CArc): Familiars share your skill ranks and buffs, you can potentially milk them for poisons and they let you just generally take a second set of actions per round. All of those are very useful.
  
• Open Chakra (MoI): For conjunction with Shape Soulmeld or continued advancement of an early-game Totemist dip.
  
• Shadow Blade (ToB): Add dexterity to damage with certain weapons. If you're going the weapon finesse route and can spare a feat (that "if" is huge), this can make for a big chunk of extra damage
  
• Shape Soulmeld (MoI): Lots of benefits addressed later.
  
• Surprising Riposte (DotU): If you feint someone, then attack them, they're flat-footed for the round. This combos well with Insightful Feint, Absorb Weapon or Invisible Blade for full action sneak attacks without the normal flanking/status effect/sniping rigamarole.
  
• Travel Devotion (CChamp): If you pick up turn or rebuke undead, this is one of the best ways for a sneak attacker to move and full attack in the same round (since it doesn't require a charge, it's much easier to set up the flank than pounce abilities).
  
• Weapon Finesse: If you've got to take it, you've got to take it. But note that it can be inexpensively replicated with Feycraft small weapons from the DMG2.
  
• Wild Cohort (web): Set up flanks or grapples with a disposable melee character, potentially milk for poisons.
  
• Bow Feint (DR#350): I plug feinting a couple times in this guide, but this is just a feat tax to make it work with ranged attacks. There's a 6-feat investment just to put a Rapid Shot+Bow Feint+Surprising Riposte combination together - that might not be prohibitive with certain dips for bonus feats, but it's too strict for me to give this more recommendation than a basic acknowledgement.
  
• Faerie Mysteries Initiate (DMC): Keying your HP off intelligence consolidates stats wonderfully for an Assassin. This works wonderfully with Necropolitan.

SNEAK ATTACK

• Aleval School (DotU): Inflict a penalty on a save with a sneak attack. Primarily useful for making poisons and Death attacks land; less common immunities than Sickening or Terrifying strikes, but much weaker effect (but it stacks).
  
• Craven (CoV): Add your character level to sneak attack damage, but take a penalty to saves against fear and lose the benefit if you're ever fear immune. Your character level means a lot of damage, and it multiplies with criticals. Losing fear immunity sucks. You might want to pack a wand of Remove Fear (it's not an immunity, but it will negate some of the disadvantages of fear effects).
  
• Daring Outlaw (CS): Add Swashbuckler levels to your Rogue levels to determine your sneak attack damage. If you go Swashbuckler 3, it's a feat for 2d6 sneak attack. Not as good as Craven, but pretty far from the worst feat you could pick.
  
• Deadly Precision (EPH): Reroll 1s on sneak attacks. This shifts the mean damage per die from 3.5 to 4, so even with 10d6 SA, it's just +5 damage.
  
• Dragonfire Strike (DM): Gain the option to deal an extra d6 sneak attack damage, but turn all SA into fire damage. The damage boost is useful at low levels, but once fire resistances start becoming common, it loses a lot of applicability.
  
• Maiming Strike (EoE): Trade sneak attack dice for Charisma damage. At low and middle levels, the charisma damage might not be able to drop anything faster than sneak attack damage would, but at high levels, monster HP skyrocket, and targeting Charisma is definitely worth your time.
  
• Sickening Strike (DotU): Inflict Sickened status with sneak attack. You can look at that as boosting your AC, your DR and your poison/death attack DCs at the same time.
  
• Staggering Strike (CAdv): Melee-only. It's a Stagger effect (nice) with a tough DC (double-nice), involving no extra effort on your part (triple-nice).
  
• Telling Blow (PHB2): Critical hits trigger sneak attack. There's nothing wrong with that ability, but if you're using it, you're not only not trying to set up sneak attacks on your own - you're burning feats to justify not trying to set up sneak attacks.  If forcing SA conditions is a problem, see post 8 for some tactical ideas.
  
• Throat-Punch (CS): For Monk/Assassins, trade a couple damage dice to give spellcasters and command-word item-users a 50% failure chance for 3 rounds. That's not a guaranteed counter, but it doesn't put them in a fun position.
  
• Terrifying Strike (DotU): Inflict Shaken status, but doesn't fear-stack. Useful for the same reasons as sickening strike (and it stacks), but with more common resistances and no damage penalty.
  
• Undo Resistance (FC2): Drop a sneak attack die to reduce a target's spell resistance by 1, stacking with itself. This feat's use is hugely dependent on party composition and campaign.
  

EXTRA ATTACKS

• Deepspawn (LoM): Two tentacle attacks, fairly intense requirements, but Inhuman Reach is useful and Aberrant Wild Shape can work well with a Shapeshifter dip.
  
• Rapid Shot: Straightforward extra ranged attack per round. Point Blank Shot is more useful than many feat taxes.
  
• Rapidstrike (Drac): Iterative attack with a natural weapon.
  
• Snap Kick (ToB): Extra unarmed strike, even on standard action attacks. If you meet the prereqs and have the resources invested in unarmed strikes to deal with incorporeality/DR/etc., it's a nice bonus.
  
• Strength Devotion (CC): Ambiguous whether the slam attack and adamantine natural weapons are limited to the hardness-bypassing ability's duration. If they are ruled to follow the duration, it's okay. If they are ruled not to, it's a very useful feat.
  
• Two-Weapon Fighting: An extra weapon attack per round (well, technically a penalty reduction), melee or thrown. Requires high dex.
  
• Improved Two-Weapon Fighting: If you have TWF, just buy a Glove of the Balanced Hand (MIC). If that isn't an option for whatever reason, skip it.
  
• Greater Two-Weapon Fighting: Unless you're making ranged touch attacks, this comes at a conspicuously low bonus.
  

DEATH ATTACK

• Ability Focus: You probably won't get Death Attack off enough to justify a feat spent on just +2 DC, but if you're really focusing a build on Death Attack, ability focus does make it better.
  
• Favored in Guild – Jazred Chalssin (DMG2+web): +4 DC. Tied pretty tightly with anti-Lolth rebel fluff.
  
• Mortifying Attack (CoR): Every creature within 30 ft of your successful Death Attacks must make a Will save (DC based on your melee damage) v. Shaken effects and Dexterity denial. Awesome effect, even if Death Attack limitations reduce it to rare use.
   

POISON USE

• Master of Poisons (DotU): Apply poison to a weapon as a swift action. If you're using poisoned weapons in melee, you're using this feat. In ranged combat, it's less vital (you can poison arrows ahead of time or throw vials of contact poison), but still useful if you join a fight unprepared
  
• Venomous Strike (DotU): Sacrifice 1d6 Sneak attack for +2 to poison DCs.
  
• Deep Poisoning (DR#322): Trade 1d6 sneak attack for +1 to poison DCs, up to +5. A very quick way to scale DCs appropriately.

SPELLS

• Arcane Strike (CWar): Trade spell slots for melee attack and damage based on the spell's level. This feat is always tempting for melee arcanists, but Assassin spell slots are scarce, so if you're not getting more than 5 attacks per round with a single melee weapon, the slots probably aren't worth it. The one probable exception for a red ranking is an unarmed strike specialist, where the extra damage adds up fast.
  
• Master Spellthief (CSco): Stack Spellthief and other Arcane caster levels to determine the level of spells a Spellthief can steal, and the caster level on all arcane spells. With a bunch of spellthief levels, this the easiest way to get full caster level into an Assassin build.
  
• Practiced Spellcaster (CDiv): The Assassin doesn't have a lot of effects cued off CL, but extending durations and making dispels less ruinous are never bad calls, especially at early Assassin levels. If you have a feat and no idea what to do with it, this is always solid.
  
• Versatile Spellcaster (RotD): Spend multiple low-level spell slots to cast higher level spells. Makes the Assassin's casting more flexible, and high-level slots more affordable (which is a useful thing to do, considering that the lowest level of Assassin spells aren't that hot).

SHAPE SOULMELD (MoI, unless stated otherwise)

Note that as well as providing a soulmeld to shape, these feats provide and advance a meldshaper level. So a build like a Rogue 3/Totemist 2/Assassin 9/Telflammar Shadowlord 6 could use a Shape Soulmeld feat to qualify for Double Chakra.

• Astral Vambraces (web): DR/magic, and more importantly, two slam attacks with a Hands bind.
  
• Blink Shirt: Short-range Teleportation at will. Great for Telflammar Shadowlords; otherwise more a utility feat than a common mobility mode.
  
• Claws of the Wyrm (DM): Requires Dragonblooded subtype. Two natural weapons for a feat. Not bad, if a character qualifies.
  
• Elder Spirit (DM): Requires Dragonblooded subtype. Skill bonus to UMD and some Knowledges, plus a slew of immunities and Intimidate bonus with the Crown bind.
  
• Enigma Helm: Made for a stealthy character, gives Nondetection (granted, an ability which is most potent at low-mid levels), as well as immunity to charms with a bind.
  
• Phase Cloak: Climb bonuses, but more importantly, Ethereal movement with the Shoulder bind.
  
• Planar Ward: Blocks mind control, as Protection from X.
  
• Shadow Mantle: Hide bonus, but more importantly, Blindsight and Total Concealment when combined with a Shoulder bind.
  
• Shedu Crown: Telepathy for 2 feat slots, including the bind. Note that while alignment restrictions are placed on meldshaping by most meldshaping classes and several of the melds (Incarnate Avatar, Planar Ward), they are not a part of the system - the [Good] Shedu crown is a legit option for Evil characters that aren't Incarnates or Soulborn.
  
• Thief's Gloves: A bonus to thief skills, plus Trapfinding with the Crown bind.
  
• Chaos Roc's Span (DR#350): Two nonlethal wing buffet reach attacks. That's cheap for one feat and they stack notably well with other attack routines.

VILE FEATS

• Willing Deformity (BoVD): Mostly a dead feat, but opens access to a number of feats that are useful to an Assassin character. At least the Intimidate bonus might be useful.
  
• Deformity – Madness (EE): Mind immunity and a 1/encounter will save bonus at the cost of a Wisdom penalty. Given the Assassin's weak will, that immunity is dynamite, and the save bonus compensates for most of the non-mind-affecting will saves you might face. The Wisdom penalty is a drag, but it's a quick way to ignore many of the scariest save effects.
  
• Deformity – Teeth (HoH): A bite attack. Not the most efficient way to get it, but an extra iteration of SA damage for melee builds.
  
• Deformity – Clawed Hands (BoVD): A claw attack. You can usually get two for the same investment, but an extra application of SA damage for melee builds.
  
• Deformity – Tall (HoH): Reach with all melee attacks. Fairly useful if you want to avoid retributive full attacks.

2: ABILITIES, RACES and TEMPLATES

ABILITIES

• Strength: Out of melee, there's no need for high Str. In melee, its major effects can be circumvented. Usually a dumpable stat, but it's occasionally required for low levels and feat-strapped natural attack builds.
  
• Dexterity: Ranged combat-focused assassins need to crank Dex high. Other assassins don't need to worry about it quite as much, but between armor and Initiative, it's not something any build will want to sacrifice.
  
• Constitution: Small HD, weak fort saves and short-range offensive powers are a fragile combination. Cover up what you can.
  
• Intelligence: This is where spells and death attack come from. You probably can't afford to really crank this score, but if it's not at least moderately high, you'd be better off leveling in Rogue.
  
• Wisdom: None of your key skills or abilities are keyed off Wisdom, so it's low priority overall, but failing Will saves is nasty enough that you can't afford to really dump this stat unless you can muster a good set of blindness and mind immunities.
  
• Charisma: Typically a dump stat, except in specifically socially-focused builds.

RACES AND TEMPLATES