"First Strike" Specialist

[InVinoVeritas]

Hello! I just thought I'd ask the collective brain power of you guys...

What is the most effective "First Strike" specialist you can come up with?

The character should be:

• Able to strike an opponent for a lot of damage, preferably before the opponent gets to react.
• Not relying on spells or magic items.
• Based on 28 point buy.
• Able to do well as the character rises in level--no good if you gotta wait until level 20 for the good stuff.

I prefer Core information, because that's all I have access to. If there is a particular something in an expansion that you need to use to make this, could you please quote your source and what it means (because I won't know otherwise).

Right now, I see some kind of Wood Elf Rogue/Barbarian/Fighter/Ranger, but I don't know if that's going to work quite right...

 

[Steve Jung]

Improved Initiative, for one.

 

[Sejs]

Improved Init, high movement, high hide score, truckloads of sneak attack and/or sudden strike, spring attack, and hide in plain sight.

Another option would be as above, but instead of spring attack, make him an archer and look to getting access to the Sniper's Shot (longer range sneak attacks) and Hunter's Mercy (next bowshot is automatically a crit threat) spells.

 

[Crothian]

You could go with a character that gets a pounce like ability, full attack at the end of a charge.

 

[Goblyn]

Core as in PH only, or core as in SRD?

If srd, then:

Rogue is the most obvious; say human with str 14 dex 16 con 12 int 10 wis 14 cha 8, take imp init and ewp: spiked chain; at level 3, improved trip; take psywar1 at level 4, and the feat is psionic weapon(+2d6 damage for one attack);level 5 is psywar2, and the feat is combat reflexes. At level 6 which is fighter1, take Stand still and .

The point by level 6 is that for most humanoid opponents, once this guy attacks, they get to do nothing but try to stand back up as this guy AoO's them into spaghetti sauce.

I'm not a huge optimizer, though, so I'm sure others will come up with more impressive ideas.

 

[Legildur]

Half-orc Barbarian with the Power Attack and Leap Attack feats. No guarantee of going first though.....

 

[InVinoVeritas]

Sounds good, but I don't know what Leap Attack and Stand Still are.

As for psionics, I don't have the book, but it is available in the SRD, so I can check it out there.

I'm still leaning toward Wood Elf over Half-Orc, though, to also get the Dex bonus (good for Initiative).

 

[Plane Sailing]

If you wanted to go outside Core, just look at Iaijutsu master from Oriental Adventures by WotC. They are all abut going absolutely first and unloading a bucketful of damage on the anyone they catch flatfooted.

Cheers

 

[Question]

I seem to recall iajutsu focus being useless outside of iatjutsu duels though, and even in a OA setting thats going to be rare as hell........

 

[Plane Sailing]

I seem to recall iajutsu focus being useless outside of iatjutsu duels though, and even in a OA setting thats going to be rare as hell........

Not so... and that combined with the iaijutsu master ability to add + Cha bonus to each DIE of iaijutsu focus bonus damage got pretty insane. The ability to add Cha bonus to init checks alongside Dex and Improved Init gave them a pretty damn good chance of going first too.

Cheers