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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Samnell" data-source="post: 3765256" data-attributes="member: 130">Background text follows, providing fun but not mandatory context for my designing needs.[sblock]The party are running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil. I made the dwarves in the town by the big dungeon into the last survivors of the time when it was dwarf-held. When the party started making real progress, I decided that the dwarves wanted to take back their home. Or at least secure it and clean out the trail of bodies the party left behind. The party, quite unexpectedly, went nuts with this angle. So the dwarves have been filtering in behind them and the dwarven priest from the town, Rerrid, is acting as a sort of Moradinite Moses. He's planning to restore the whole dwarven kingdom that used to be in the area.Because of all of that business, I haven't done too much cat and mouse play between the party and the scry-capable foes further on in the adventure. They've talked over mutual clairaudiences a few times, but the party just laughed off the assassins Monte suggested sending after them. So I decided that I wanted to engage them more. The sorta-boss of the mountain is Hedrack, and Rerrid takes his possession of dwarven land as a personal affront. He's going to go with the party when they confront Hedrack in a knock-down, drag-out dwarven messianic figure vs. head evil cultist showdown. The party's really looking forward to it.I've built Rerrid up with about 10 cleric levels and four dollops of level adjustment (half-celestial with fewer SLAs, Saint template) to give him a neat divine flavor without making him better than the party's own divine casters by a huge degree. The party is buying into the Rerrid end of the Rerrid-Hedrack rivalry. I figure it could only be better if Hedrack took a personal interest in offing Rerrid. His own assassins being gone, he could hire some outside help. Since I just got the book of nine swords, I love it, and one of the players is using some of it, why not build the "assassin" using it?As an added wrinkle, I want the assassin to be an honorable adversary type. He's LN and only took the hit on Rerrid because Hedrack claims to be holding one of the Nine Swords and will hand it over once Rerrid is dead. He infiltrated the dwarven holdings and left a polite note on Rerrid's pillow to the effect that he had two days to make peace with his god and that if Rerrid went quietly, the assassin would make it quick.[/sblock]So my design need: A swordsage specialized in infiltration and burst damage. His goal is to do sickening damage in a round or two and then run far, far away. Obviously, he'll be dipping heavy into Shadow Hand. The Target: Rerrid Hammersong. Half-celestial (minus most of the spell-like abilities)/half-dwarf saint cleric 7/divine disciple 3. CR12. ECL 14.His likely protectors:halfling druid 9/warshaper 3 no animal companionhuman rogue 7/shadowdancer 4deep imaskari (basically a human) transmuter 7/full-casting PrC 4human warblade 2/paladin 3/ kensai 6human cleric 9 cohortIdeally, I want an effective swordsage heavy into Shadow Hand who will probably face the whole party at once and on his own. He should be capable of running away and coming back to fight another day. Call it 15th level. I'd like to balance some of his combat effectiveness with a few slightly suboptimal choices. I want him to scare the party and threaten them seriously, but TPK them. I'd prefer to avoid Desert Wind stuff, as it just doesn't fit his stealthy killer schtick. This is what I have, but this is my first real Bo9S design, so I'm very open to advice:Gentle Touch15th level halfling swordsageStr 8, Dex 19, Con 10, Int 10, Wis 18, Cha 8 (there will be an item to give him a strength bonus)Maneuvers known: 20Maneuvers readied: 10Stances known: 5Stances1st (2 1st level): Child of Shadow (76), Step of the Wind (74)5th (1 1-3): Assassin’s Stance (75, req 1)9th (1 1-5): ?14th (1 1-7): ?Maneuvers:1st (7) Shadow Blade Technique (strike, 76) +6 others2nd (2) no ideas3rd (2) Insightful Strike (strike, 63) +1 other4th (2) Death From Above (strike, 86, req 1) +1 other5th (2) Dancing Mongoose (boost, 86 req 2), Rapid Counter (counter, 65)6th (2) Shadow Noose (strike, 76, Fort DC 20), Stalker in the Night (strike, 80)7th (2) Death in the Dark (strike, 76, Fort DC 21), Shadow Blink 8th (1) One With Shadow (counter, 73. req 3)Likely weapon choice is a rapier and dagger combo, with weapon finesse of course.I'm really drawing blanks on the rest of what to give him, and I seem to have gone pretty strike-crazy. Possibly more than he'd realistically have a chance to use in a fight.</blockquote>

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