Need advice making a great thief :)

Otterscrubber

First Post
I want to make a thief, who can turn invisible as often as possible. Not sure what the best class for this is. Would I make a wizard with some thief skills? Rogue with some wizard or warlock cross class? I think a gnome would be a good racial choice, but I'm used to making clerics and rangers so I'm not as famaliar with classes that have these abilities. Obviously there are other abilitities I'm interested as well: stealthiness, ability to pass through walls or get through small openings, etc...

I'm trying to focus on this rather than combat skills/feats as I have in the past.

Thanks for any feedback.
 

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One of my characters has the unseen mage wizard paragon path which has a fair few ways of getting invisibility. The encounter attack power makes you invis for 1-2 rounds as an effect. The daily utility is an encounter long invis zone. On an action point you get up to 2 rounds invisibility.

As far as a base class maybe hexblade or warlock?
 

Gnome Assasin|Rogue Hybrid Talent Cunning Sneak/MC Warlock. Grab the At-Will Teleport utility at 10 with a powerswap. Hold a Staff of the Traveler in your off-hand, and buy teleport Enhancers.

Can Hide at the end of any action that involves moving 3+ squares with only Cover/Concealment (not superior/total). You can get Shadowalk via a feat, which grants you Concealment automatically when you move 3+ squares. You can hide at start of combat if you have Cover/Conceal (you do, all the time). You can Teleport a ridiculous number of square when you shift (in theory if you had all the teleport enhancing gear you could teleport 17 squares off a 1 square shift). Grab Opportunity Sidestep at Paragon, shift on a succesful OA, and the shift will turn into a multi-square teleport, at the end of which you can Hide (preferably next to something that will provoke an OA). Pick up Heavy Blade Opportunity and you can even Sneak Attack on these OAs, since it is one/turn now.

Getting through tight spots you only need LoS, and you can teleport into them.

Breeching Armor will allow you, one/day to teleport to the other side of a wall without LoS.
 

The Assassin (especially the original kind) and Warlock have the most invisibility powers, both also have access to thievery. The Assassin and feypact hexblade are the 'best' choices as they both use dexterity, although a feypact original warlock has both eyebite and shadowwalk, it would just want to pump dex instead of int. [Interestingly enough, a feypact hexblade that multi's into Assassin can get shadowwalk as well].

The best race may end up being the shade (especially for warlocks, it probably wouldn't be necessary for an assassin), but gnomes are good to. With the new stat options they can go with a Dex for the assassin and stealth [who doesn't care as much about charisma]. A gnome could also go with the Martial Power 2 Rogue build that is very good at stealth and can use Int as a secondary stat.

Phasing is pretty hard to come by before reaching paragon tier, and even then isn't quite common. There is an assassin paragon path that provides phasing for a turn along with a spent action point. Another racial option is the revenant. They can be a former gnome (getting access to the gnomes stealth tricks via feats), they can have dex/cha which works for both assassin's and feypact hexblades, and they have a paragon path which gives the ability to phase for a long time as a daily [albeit it is sustain standard after the initial minor to start] in addition to the action point phasing.

In terms of non-phasing ways to get through walls/tight places, warlocks and assassins both have lots of teleports (which are nice if you have line of sight but not line of effect). At level 10, the warlock has access to Warlock's Leap, which allows for a 'blind' teleport, not requiring line of effect or line of sight to the destination, which can be break for teleporting to the other side of a wall or door. At level 6, they also have access to both Mercurial Form [you are tiny for the purposes of squeezing] and Sand Form [You can pass through any opening the size of a single grain of sand].
 

Gnome Assasin|Rogue Hybrid Talent Cunning Sneak/MC Warlock. Grab the At-Will Teleport utility at 10 with a powerswap. Hold a Staff of the Traveler in your off-hand, and buy teleport Enhancers.

Can Hide at the end of any action that involves moving 3+ squares with only Cover/Concealment (not superior/total). You can get Shadowalk via a feat, which grants you Concealment automatically when you move 3+ squares. You can hide at start of combat if you have Cover/Conceal (you do, all the time). You can Teleport a ridiculous number of square when you shift (in theory if you had all the teleport enhancing gear you could teleport 17 squares off a 1 square shift). Grab Opportunity Sidestep at Paragon, shift on a succesful OA, and the shift will turn into a multi-square teleport, at the end of which you can Hide (preferably next to something that will provoke an OA). Pick up Heavy Blade Opportunity and you can even Sneak Attack on these OAs, since it is one/turn now.

Getting through tight spots you only need LoS, and you can teleport into them.

Breeching Armor will allow you, one/day to teleport to the other side of a wall without LoS.

To further explain.

Rogue/Assassin (with Hybrid Talent feat for Cunning Sneak) and a Warlock Multiclass can pick up the Cursed Shadow feat from Dragon 385. It gives you the Warlock classes Shadow Walk feature.

It's an investment of 3 feats. But essentially 2 of those are Hybrid Talents. You'd have to keep moving too, as the concealment is only EonT. But it would work.

This also work with a Rogue/Warlock hybrid multi'd into Assassin. Depending on choice of race (sav, Revenant) it could be leagues better than Rogue/Assassin even with them sharing Dex primary.

There's also a ton of items that can enhance these, but as noted, phasing is a mid-Paragon level. However, you'll be invisible much more often by then, so who's gonna know if you walked through the wall or around it? Haha

Edit just for fun: Revenant (no second race for this hypothetical) Warlock/Assassin and made it 18 dex/18cha to get Sly Flourish (weapon+8 at 1st level) and Eyebite as my At-Will which is single target invisibility though it's "until start of next turn". By level 4 you can have the 3 feats I mentioned, and you'll likely pick up a Pact blade of some kind (light blade). The Scales of War background "Noble Trained For War" allows you training in 1 Military weapon. Select Rapier and get a pact-blade Rapier for the 1d8weapon/implement (to free up your off-hand for anything you want). Think you can get that at level 3.
 
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Yeah, assassim/rogue into warlock will get you there pretty fast. Assassins have some pretty nifty encounter powers and utilities that can turn you invisible even without using shadow walk to hide.


Here is a neat rogue build with plenty of trickery:

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edit: Here's my version of the rogue/assassin hybrid

Lele Human Assassin Rogue, level 11
Human, Rogue|Assassin, Shadow Assassin
Hybrid Assassin: Hybrid Assassin Will
Hybrid Talent: Rogue Tactics (Hybrid)
Rogue Tactics (Hybrid): Cunning Sneak (Hybrid)
Human Power Selection: Bonus At-Will Power
Background: Occupation - Criminal (+2 to Thievery)

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 10, Con 19, Dex 21, Int 11, Wis 11, Cha 14.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 9, Con 16, Dex 16, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 13.


AC: 26 Fort: 22 Reflex: 26 Will: 21
HP: 70 Surges: 10 Surge Value: 17

TRAINED SKILLS
Bluff +12, Stealth +15, Thievery +17, Perception +10, Intimidate +12, Athletics +10, Acrobatics +15

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Arcana +5, Diplomacy +7, Dungeoneering +5, Endurance +9, Heal +5, History +5, Insight +5, Nature +5, Religion +5, Streetwise +7

FEATS
Human: Cursed Shadow
Level 1: Student of Malediction
Level 2: Hybrid Talent
Level 4: Light Blade Expertise
Level 6: Roguish Killer
Level 8: Deadeye Slinger
Level 10: Two-Weapon Fighting
Level 11: Two-Weapon Opening

POWERS
Bonus At-Will Power: Piercing Strike
Hybrid at-will 1: Executioner's Noose
Hybrid at-will 1: Deft Strike
Hybrid encounter 1: Gloom Thief
Hybrid daily 1: Blinding Barrage
Hybrid utility 2: Fleeting Ghost
Hybrid encounter 3: Low Slash
Hybrid daily 5: Twilight Assassin
Hybrid utility 6: Slayer's Escape
Hybrid encounter 7: Shadow Jack
Hybrid daily 9: Into Harm's Way
Hybrid utility 10: Seeker of Shadow

ITEMS
Shadowblade, Feytouched Drowmesh +3, Orc's-Eye Amulet +2, Rhythm Blade Short sword +1, Gauntlets of Blood (heroic tier), Muleback Harness (heroic tier), Rebounding Sling +2, Mithrendain Steel Rapier +2
 
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One other possible suggestion...

Ever-Fading Armor effectively makes any invisibility effect sustainable with by using your Standard actions. It's great for long-term out-of-combat invisible stealthiness.
 


I'm thinking assasin/warlock hybrid, I dont really see what rogue brings to the table. Question is I'd like to get both Shadow Walk(Warlock) and Shadow Step (assasin) powers. If there is a way to fit in Shade Form as well that would be ideal, but is there a feat combo that would get me both shadow walk and shadow step?
 

I'm thinking assasin/warlock hybrid, I dont really see what rogue brings to the table. Question is I'd like to get both Shadow Walk(Warlock) and Shadow Step (assasin) powers. If there is a way to fit in Shade Form as well that would be ideal, but is there a feat combo that would get me both shadow walk and shadow step?
The entire class feature that allows you to be constantly invisible? The real question is what does Assassin bring to the table, cause outside of the feat that allows you to grab Shadowstep the answer is "nothing."
 

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