Help on a Rogue 4/Wizard 5/Arcane Trickster 3

[KaLogain]

These are the rules I have to go by, including allowed books and such:

Character Submission Guidelines:

* Setting: Published adventure.

* Books Allowed: Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual; the Complete series, Draconomicon, Dungeon Master's Guide II, the Environmental series, Expanded Psionics Handbook, Heroes of Battle, Magic of Incarnum, Monster Manual III, Planar Handbook, Player's Handbook II, the Races series (excluding Races of Eberron), Spell Compendium, and Tome of Magic.

* Level: 12. You have 66,500 XP (500 more points than standard).
* Abilities: Use a point-buy of 32.

* Races: Any from Player's Handbook plus
o Environmental: Crucian, hadozee, neanderthal, uldra;
o Magic of Incarnum: Azurin, duskling, rilkan, skarn;
o Monster Manuals: Goblin, hobgoblin, kenku, orc, poison dusk lizardfolk;
o Planar Handbook: Bariaur, mephling, neraph, shadowswyft, spiker, wildren;
o Psionics: Blue, dromite, duergar, elan, githyanki, githzerai, maenad, synad, xeph;
o Races: Aasimar, chaos gnome, dream dwarf, goliath, half-ogre, illumian, kobold, mongrelfolk, raptoran, sharakim, spellscale, tiefling, underfolk, whisper gnome.
o Templates are not allowed.

* Classes: Any from Player's Handbook plus
o Complete: Favored soul, hexblade, scout, shugenja, warmage;
o Magic of Incarnum: Incarnate, soulborn, totemist;
o Player's Handbook II: Beguiler, duskblade, dragon shaman, knight;
o Psionics: Ardent, divine mind, lurk, psion, psychic warrior, soulknife, wilder;
o Tome of Magic: Binder, shadowcaster, truenamer.
o Racial substitution levels (Races series) and alternative class features (Player's Handbook II) are allowed.
* Prestige Classes: Any from the allowed books (within reason; some will not be appropriate).

* Hit Points: Full points at 1st level; for subsequent levels, use these fixed values for the hit die: d4 = 3, d6 = 4, d8 = 5, d10 = 6, d12 = 7.
* Starting Wealth: 88,000 gp.
* Alignment: Any non-evil, and any neutral characters must make it clear that they will be cooperative and trustworthy towards the other members of the party, though not necessarily towards NPCs, as per forum rules.

This is what I have so far:

Kal Nikit
Hafling Male Rogue 4/Wizard 5/Arcane Trickster 3
Neutral Good

XP: 65,500

Str -- 10 ( 4 pts -2 Racial)
Dex -- 16 ( 6 pts +2 Racial)
Con -- 14 ( 4 pts)
Int -- 19 ( 10 pts +1 4th lvl +1 8th lvl +1 12 lvl)
Wis -- 14 ( 6 pts)
Cha -- 8 ( 0 pts)

Hit Points 66/66, 8+6+6+6+5+5+5+5+5+5+5+
AC ?, Touch ?, Flat ?
Init +3
BAB +6, Grap +7
Speed 20ft
Fort +7, Ref +12, Will +11

Weapons ?

Small, tall ?, wt ?, ? yrs old
Hair ?, eyes ?, skin ?

Speaks Common, Halfling, Dwarven, Elven, Goblin, Draconic

Skills, 77+15+12+24 = 128

Concentration (con) 15= 2 + 0 + 12 + 1
Decipher Script (int) 11= 4 + 7 + 0 + 0
Disable Device (int) 15= 4 + 7 + 0 + 4
Escape Artist (dex) 10= 3 + 7 + 0 + 0
Hide (dex) 15= 3 + 7 + 0 + 1 +4
Knowledge (Arcana) (int) 8= 4 + 0 + 4 + 0
Listen (wis) 12= 2 + 7 + 0 + 1 +2
Move Silelntly (dex) 15= 3 + 7 + 0 + 3 +2
Open Locks (dex) 15= 3 + 7 + 0 + 5
Search (int) 12= 4 + 7 + 0 + 1
Sleight of Hand (dex) 15= 3 + 7 + 0 + 5
Spellcraft (int) 15= 4 + 0 + 11 + 0
Spot (wis) 12= 2 + 7 + 0 + 3
Tumble (dex) 10= 3 + 7 + 0 + 0

Feats
WP (simple)
WP (hand crossbow, rapier, shortbow, short sword)
AP (light)
WP (club, dagger, heavy crossbow, light crossbow, quartstaff)
Point Blank Shot, 1st
Precise Shot, 3rd
Scribe Scroll
combat Casting, 6th
Empower Spells, Wizard Bonus Feat
spell Focus (evocation), 9th
Spell Penetration, 12th

Halfling Traits
+2 Dex, -2 Str
Small, +1 AC +1 Attack, +4 Hide, Small Weapons, 3/4 carrying
Speed: 20 ft
+2 on Climb, Jump, Move Silently
+1 Saving Throw
+2 saving Throws against Fear.
+1 Attack bonus with thrown weapons and slings
+2 Listen

Rogue Abilities:
Sneak Attack +2d6
Trapfinding
Evasion
Trap Sense +1

Wizard Abilities:
Summon Familiar
Scribe Scroll
Bonus Feat:

Arcane Trickster Abilities:
Ranged Legerdemain 1/day
Sneak Attack +1d6
Impromptu sneak attack 1/day
+3 effective Wizard levels for spells

Spells Prepared [4/5/4/4/3; DC 14 + spell level;] Specialized Evocation Domain,
0th-
1st-
2nd-
3rd-
4th-

Special

Equipment

I'm looking for advice on a better build, (if people see any glaring problem with this build) spells, equipment, feats, and skills.

I'm new to making a Spellcaster so any help is appreciated.

 

[Jack Simth]

A few minor suggestions....

drop Spell Penetration in favor of Practiced Spellcaster (Wizard) - it will actually do more for you (+4 caster level for everything vs. +2 for penetrating SR)

Take Craft Wand as your 5th level Wizard bonus feat. Crafting Wands lets you sneak attack for a good length of time.

Drop Spell Focus (evocation) - you don't want to be working with spells that permit saves anyway - you want things with touch attack rolls to permit Sneak Attack goodness; get that extra +3d6 damage on each attack; swap it out for, say, improved feint (works rather well with Chill Touch).

Prepare a lot of Grease spells - quickening is good - as few critters have balance, and while balancing, you lose dex to AC.....

Combat casting is +4 to a very specific use of Concentration, while at 12th, you'll almost always hit the DC for casting defensively anyway; Skill Focus(Concentration) is usually better.

 

[KaLogain]

Take Craft Wand as your 5th level Wizard bonus feat. Crafting Wands lets you sneak attack for a good length of time.

Excuse my ignorance, but what do you men by this? Thank you for the help so far.

 

[Journeyman]

He means that a wand with a touch attack spell will allow you to sneak attack even after you've run out of spells.

I would definitely second dropping combat casting, which is no longer useful by level twelve. I also agree that you may not get much use out of Spell Focus.

Practiced Spellcaster is almost a requirement. It's very hard for an AT to keep up without it. You might also take a look at Reach Spell, in Complete Divine, which allows you to use touch spells at range (very nice with Chill Touch and Vampiric Touch). The sudden metamagic feats in Complete Arcane can also be good.

I would actually disagree with Improved Feint. Two feats is too expensive, and your character should probably be trying to stay out of melee at all costs anyway.

Unless you are very attached to that fourth level of rogue, I would seriously consider dropping it. It gets you some nice stuff, but nothing worth a full caster level. In your case, taking another level of AT would mean starting with fifth level spells.

Grease can be very good, but if you're going to use it a lot I'd take 5 ranks in balance to avoid having it backfire on you.

I'm sure you have this covered already, but make sure you start with Greater Invisibility, Blink (or Improved Blink), and a handful of ranged touch attacks. Heroism is also good, since it boosts attacks, saves, and skills for a long duration.

It's less of a concern by level twelve, but I'd also make sure you have a decent bow to fall back on. There will be cases where you want to save your spells and wands, and it helps to have another option.

 

[KaLogain]

Unless you are very attached to that fourth level of rogue, I would seriously consider dropping it. It gets you some nice stuff, but nothing worth a full caster level. In your case, taking another level of AT would mean starting with fifth level spells.

I don't think I can drop that 4th lvl of rogue, I have to have 7 ranks in Decipher Scripts, 7 ranks in Disable Device, and Escape Artist 7 ranks. I'm already hurting for ranks in my Wizard levels and I'd have to do DD and EA cross class. But I will keep this in mind.

Grease can be very good, but if you're going to use it a lot I'd take 5 ranks in balance to avoid having it backfire on you.

I'm sure you have this covered already, but make sure you start with Greater Invisibility, Blink (or Improved Blink), and a handful of ranged touch attacks. Heroism is also good, since it boosts attacks, saves, and skills for a long duration.

No thank you for mentioning it, I had no idea. Again this is my first time playing any spell caster and almost my first time playing a rogue ( for a game with only a couple of sessions) and defiantly my first time mixing them.

 

[mikebr99]

I will also recommend Practiced Spellcaster...
And Arcane Strike.

Mike

 

[szilard]

Has anyone tried an Arcane Trickster build using Rogue 3/Beguiler 6 (or whenever they get 3rd level spells)/Arcant Trickster X?

-Stuart

 

[KaLogain]

Has anyone tried an Arcane Trickster build using Rogue 3/Beguiler 6 (or whenever they get 3rd level spells)/Arcane Trickster X?

-Stuart

I just looked at the class. While it seemed extremely interesting, I was thinking I kind of wanted to concentrate on fire power, since this campaign is going to be mostly fighting. Again this is my first time as a spell caster, so would my thinking here be correct? I'm not tied to anything here, I guess except for the idea of Arcane Trickster, that has some nice rogue skills, except for the melee combat.

 

[Ragnar69]

Definatly get Chill Touch as one of your 1st lvl spells. You can get a lot of touch sneak attacks per encounter with only one casting. Vampiric Touch and Blink are a must too.

Drop Spell Focus and Combat Casting, take Weapon Finesse (for melele touch attacks) and Praticed Spellcaster.

Don't rely too much on ranged spells to do damage, especialy not those that can be resisted. Instead flank and dish out touch spells with bonus damage from sneak attack.

Important schools are necromancy (chill+vampiric touch), illusion (invisibility), transmutation (blink, fly). I would recommend an illusionist or necromancer with forbidden schools enchantment and either abjuration or evocation.

 

[Finley DaDum]

I will concur with Journeyman go with 3 levels or Rogue you will need the spells more and you will get another 1d6 of sneak attack. If it were me I would drop the Str to 8 and the wisdom to 12 and up your Dex to 18.

On the skills you realize that if you stagger your rogue levels so you take at least one level at level 4 or later you can buy more than 1 rank in the required skills to qualify for Arcane Trickster. I think you have some errors in your Skill pts available as well (specifically your wizard levels).

Skill pts 66 (3 lvls of Rog) +26 (5 Wiz, last with 18 Int.) + 32 (4 Arc Trk) = 124 pts

Skills-I'm just gonna disperse ranks here
Concentration-15
Decipher Script-7 (the min for AT)
Disable Device-12
Escape Artist-7 (the min for AT)
Hide- 8
Knowledge (Arcane)-5 (nice plus +2 to spellcraft)
Listen-7
Move Silently-8
Open Lock-11
Search-12
Sleight of Hand-4
Spellcraft-15 (if your the only arcane caster otherwise lower this dramatically)
Spot-7
Tumble-7

For me the key skill set is the the Search, Open Locks, Disable Device with the Hide and Move Silently second and the Spot and Listen last I place those two lower just because in my experience there is usually someone else in the party with these maxed out or nearly so. If your the only one with those skills you might want to balance these more, also this skill set assumes you end up using Open locks and Disable Device frequently if that is not the case refocus on Hide and Move Silently. If this is a combat heavy campaign you may want to up Tumble at least to the point that your making DC:15 automatically.

For spells - touch spells, esp ranged touch (Scorching Ray is your friend).
Feats - Drop the combat casting if you must take Skill Focus: Concentration. But really you dont need either, if you max out your Concentration skill you will have a +17 which will allow you to cast up to 3rd level spells defensively on a roll of a 1. Replace it with Practiced Spellcaster a must for almost any multiclass build. For me I would drop spell focus Evocation in favor of something else if you concentrate on touch spells the save DC wont matter as much. With the right spells, you can get around SR so spell penetration is something you don't absolutely need but if your campaign will feature lots of creatures with SR then keep it.