Help with a Scout Build

szilard said:

Melee scout - Dervish - will allow you to move and take a full attack, so you get your skirmish bonus on all your attacks while dervish dancing.

Ranged scout - go mounted, as you can make a full attack when your mount is moving (and get your skirmish bonus on all attacks).

-Stuart

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This is what I'm doing. I mostly only took Scout for Trapfinding, 1 level of Druid for the companion and the rest are going to be Ranger. I wanted to at least make use of my Skirmish ability so I made my companion a mount so that I could take a full attack.

I'm still 1 feat shy of mounted archery, though.

Edit: Now that I read the rest of the thread... that is utter BS. A rogue can get SA damage on every attack as long as he keeps the enemy flanked or succeeds on a bluff check at the cost of one feat and no attack bonus. But a Scout can't even with 2 feats and a penalty to attack?

Tumble DC 40 allows a 10 foot step as a 5 foot step.

I believe the Scout could do a partial charge in the surprise round. Would give him movement and an attack.

I have to second the dip into Barbarian. The movement bonus stacks with the Scout and so does the Uncanny dodge. For this combo the rage variant from UA is quite nice and fitting.

Vraister

One option (which i'm currently trying myself) is to go for a melee scout/swashbuckler leading into dervisher. I decided to create a scout with quite a high intelligence as our party lacked on any other skills monkey, entering into the game at level 7/8. Starting in scout, i then levelled in both scout and swash levels until i had 3 levels in swashbuckler (giving me weapon finesse at level 1, +1 bonus on reflex saves at lvl 2, and my intelligence bonus to damage at lvl 3). Taking 3 or 4 levels in scout will gave all the feats and skill requirements needed to get into the dervish class, whilst also giving lots of skill points to play with. Going off the top of my head, the route i took (starting play at lvl 8) was:
Human
Lvl 1: Scout 1; Skirmish, trapfinding; Bonus feats: Dodge, 2-wpn fght; skill points: (8+1+int) x 4
Lvl 2: Swash 1; Wpn finesse; skill points: 4+1+int
Lvl 3: Scout 2; Battle fort +1, uncanny dodge; Bonus feat: Combat expertise; skill points: 8+1+int
Lvl 4: Swash 2; Grace +1; skill points: 4+1+int
Lvl 5: Scout 3; Fast mv +10, skirmish, trackless step; skill points: 8+1+int
Lvl 6: Swash 3; Insightful strike; Bonus feat: Wpn focus (any slashing lght wpn, i chose scimitar); skill points: 4+1+int
Lvl 7: Scout 4; Bonus feat; Mobility; skill points: 8+1+int
Lvl 8: Dervish 1; Dervish dance, movement mastery, slashing blades, +1 AC; skill points: 4+1+int

This gave me BAB +7/+2, Fort 5, Ref 8, Will 2 (with special class bonuses included), 83 skill points (+int bonuses), 3 attacks on a full attack using scimitars as light finessable weapons with int bonus to damage (+1d6 skirmish damage when derv. dancing), and enough skill ranks in move silently, hide, search, disable device (see rules FAQ), tumble etc to be the party's main rogue. My build also allowed for a lower strength whilst still hitting and damaging fairly hard. Additional levels have gone in the majority towards dervish, with the occasional top up from scout for evasion and additional dice of skirmish damage.

johnsemlak said:

Why is Greater Manyshot listed in the Psionic Feats section at the Hypertext SRD?

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Because it was published in XPH and not in PHB.

If you can hold off until you are higher level, there is a 5th level stance in Tome of Battle called "Pressing the Advantage" which allows you to take an extra 5-foot step immediately after you take your normal 5-foot step for the round. This would effectively allow you to move 10 feet w/o provoking an AoO, and you'd get your skirmish damage as well.

I beleive the Elocator from XPH has a similiar ability as well.

There is also a Sparring Dummy "magical item" in the 3.0 Arms and Equipment guide which turns your 5 foot steps into 10 foot steps permanently, though you need at least 1 level of Monk to use it.

Just some ideas to throw at ya.

geosapient said:

Edit: Now that I read the rest of the thread... that is utter BS. A rogue can get SA damage on every attack as long as he keeps the enemy flanked or succeeds on a bluff check at the cost of one feat and no attack bonus. But a Scout can't even with 2 feats and a penalty to attack?

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Sure he can, you just have to think of alternate ways of doing it. See my post above.

RigaMortus2 said:

Sure he can, you just have to think of alternate ways of doing it. See my post above.

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Our DM doesn't allow anything from the psionic books, we play 3.5 and hw doesn't allow 3.0 rules and he already nixed the idea of magical means of movement for the purposes of skirmish.

As a scout / ranger / druid what is the big deal about allowing skirmish while mounted? You have to take mounted combat and mounted archery and this would still give a -2 penalty to attacks. That seems more than reasonable for something that a rogue gets without any feats or penalty.