carborundum said:
We miss the area effects but I doubt the rogue/ ranger/ sorceror will ever get a high enough caster level to fill this gap now.
She's Chaotic Neutral and prone to teasing bad guys to focus on her, then avoiding everything. She's more about the tumbling and the stabbing than worrying about traps and stuff. Anything cool and flashy would be perfect. I thought Shadowdancer but she never put ranks in Dance.
Hm. She could retrain her last Ranger level into another Rogue level, grab up the needed 5 ranks in Perform (Dance), and then use her pending level-up to become a 1st-level Shadowdancer. Not sure it'd really help, though. And she'd need to have the 3 feats already.
Doesn't sound like she'd be able to qualify for Arcane Trickster, given the not-so-great-with-traps-and-stuff bit. It might fit her concept a bit better, but she'd need 2 more levels of Sorcerer and several ranks in the required skills first, which would probably mean 1-2 more levels of Rogue as well.
The best I can think of, since I don't have Complete Mage or the like, would be to suggest she retrain her last Ranger level into a Sorcerer level, then use her level-up to add another Sorcerer level. Learn Scorching Ray if she doesn't already know it, and Lightning Bolt or Fireball to help out the group with area-attacks. And Invisibility if she can, to allow for some occasional Scorching Ray sneak attacks (remember, when you cast that spell, the rays are fired simultaneously, so each one gets sneak attack damage dice if the targets are denied a Dexterity bonus to AC against it).
Remember that Sorcerers in 3.5 can replace an earlier-learned spell at certain class levels, take advantage of it if needed (she can swap out a 1st-level spell at 6th-level in the class). Take the Practiced Spellcaster feat, from Complete Arcane I think?, as her 12th-level feat, to increase her Sorcerer caster level by +4 for purposes of spell effects; this'll make her Lightning Bolts do 10d6 damage, for example, and give her 2 rays from each casting of Scorching Ray. So doubling up the sneak attack dice with it, when she gets surprise or something. And if she knows Magic Missile, it'll go up to 4d4+4 damage.
Spend skill points cross-class to get some ranks in the needed skills for Arcane Trickster, and learn Mage Hand if she doesn't already know it, as a prerequisite for the prestige class. Then, next time she levels up, add 1 more Rogue level to finish buying up the needed skill ranks (if she gets enough skill points, given however many ranks she may or may not already have in the skills). Take another Rogue level after that if needed. Then enter Arcane Trickster, to continue advancing caster levels and Sneak Attack, along with getting Impromptu Sneak Attack and Ranged Legerdemain.
Retraining the 3rd Ranger level later on would probably be useful, to get another Rogue level out of it.
