ninja/shadowdancer build.

[Animal]

If lawful you could consider some levels of monk for increased mobility and FoB could help you out, and IIRC there are some good feats for using Ki abilities. Especially useful if you can talk your DM into letting you take af eat that allow multiclassing with the Monk.

i'm lawful neutral. and its really a good idea actually. 2 levels of monk and Ascetic Stalker are a very interesting choice. can't believe i've missed out that feat! wisdom synergy, evasion, unarmed damage progression, stunning fist to stun peeps for SS. wow i'm almost sold on it.
maybe i should also take improved disarm and beat people to death with their own weapons?

Right. But Ninja class has "Average" BAB progression. In my experience, you will eventually find that the biggest problem is that your attack bonus is too low comparing to those of characters with "good" BAB classes. If you can't hit, you can't inflict SA damages. Fighter feats helps you in that area.

i already have to spend three feats to get into SD PrC. this build is already feat intensive and i just won't be able to pick all the fighter feats until late teens. anyway when i'll be sudden striking enemies will be denied their dex bonus, so that may help a bit. as for feats i think i'll be looking for something that doesn't give plain bonuses but gives some extra abilities and choices. like Pharaoh Fist (iirc) for crowd control or some tactical feats.

Taking a level of Cleric with Magic Domain instead is not a bad idea. Imagine what you can do with wands and staves of all the Sor/Wiz and Clr spells.

that's an interesting idea. but is it worth losing a level?

 

[Starbuck_II]

i already have to spend three feats to get into SD PrC. this build is already feat intensive and i just won't be able to pick all the fighter feats until late teens. anyway when i'll be sudden striking enemies will be denied their dex bonus, so that may help a bit. as for feats i think i'll be looking for something that doesn't give plain bonuses but gives some extra abilities and choices. like Pharaoh Fist (iirc) for crowd control or some tactical feats.

Did you consider enemy rogues, Barbarians, Blind Fight, etc? Uncanny Dodge!
You can't use sudden strike on them with hide in plain sight or invisibility.

You need Feint, Grease (denies them dex to AC while balancing), etc.
Invisible Blade in CW lets you Fient for as a swift action

or

Stormwreck has a Prc called Scarlet Corsair (free action but recharge time like how a Dragon must wait Xd4 rounds).

 

[Shin Okada]

that's an interesting idea. but is it worth losing a level?

It depends on campaign and availability of magic items.

But as ninja can't take UMD as a class skill, ninja will be benefited from this level much.

Wands will give you really various options. Invisibility and Greater Invisibility will complement your limited Ki power use per day. Silence may be your friend, too. Also, depend on your race, you can use Darkvision or Low-light vision spells to gain visions you don't usually have. Blacklight spell (Spell Compendium) can create an area of total darkness in which only you can see things normally. For movement, you can use Dimension Door, Expeditious Retreat, Fly & Haste.

And wands may give you options against critters immune to Sudden Strike. Say, using Fireball against undead monsters.

Also, there are various low-level touch attack spells and ranged touch attack spells. As you can add SS damage bonus, wands of those spells could be useful.

 

[Runestar]

If you are a power gamer, taking a level of Fighter and Martial Stalker feat (Comp Scoundrel) is not a bad idea, too. You can add up fighter and ninja levels for qualifying feats which require a minimum fighter level. So you can take feats such as Weapon Specialization, Greater Weapon Focus, Melee Weapon Mastery (PHB II). Bonuses from those feats are effective against enemies immune to your sudden strike damages.

What's so power-gamer'ish about that? If anything, that seems woefully underpowered to me. Weapon focus/spec are very weak feats normally not worth wasting precious feat slots on.

 

[Shin Okada]

What's so power-gamer'ish about that? If anything, that seems woefully underpowered to me. Weapon focus/spec are very weak feats normally not worth wasting precious feat slots on.

Not so munchkin. Just going all out for simple attack/damage bonuses instead of building around some nifty tricks.

Well, whether if Weapon Focus tree worth or not depends on DM and campaign. Or more specifically, what kind of opponents you meet, and how often you fight between each rest. If your DM throw descent to high AC opponents often, anything improves attack bonus worth more than any other feats for melee/ranged combatants. While many of the fancy tricks (such as super charger builds or some super attack per day builds) occasionally let you do something devastating, pure attack bonus and damage bonus are almost always useful.

 

[Stormborn]

i'm lawful neutral. and its really a good idea actually. 2 levels of monk and Ascetic Stalker are a very interesting choice. can't believe i've missed out that feat! wisdom synergy, evasion, unarmed damage progression, stunning fist to stun peeps for SS. wow i'm almost sold on it.
maybe i should also take improved disarm and beat people to death with their own weapons?

See, I think that the ninja/monk combo is the perfect chocie for an infiltrator assassin type. You get stopped at the city gate by the guards, so what, you aren't carrying any weapons. Other than farm implements.

Of course if you do want to go totally xuixia and can take feats from Eberron you take alevel of fighter along with it, two weapon fighting, and the feat that lets you flurry with long swords.

Or just stick with ninja/mon/shadow dancer.

 

[Animal]

starbuck, shin okada, thanks for your advice guys. those options are interesting but i just don't want optimization to go too far. i mean ninja/scarlet corsair or ninja/cleric? it doesn't really fit the character concept. so i guess i'll have to find another way to deal with barbarians and rogues. (anyways, who takes more than one lvl of barbarian nowadays? ). invisible blade is better but still very hard to meet the prereqs. and even if i do, i'll run out of feat for SD.

stormborn, no eberron material allowed. guess i'll have to stick to ninja/monk/SD for the time being.

 

[Stormborn]

So, has the build seen play?

 

[Kurashu]

Umbral Disciple is an awesome prestige class from Magic of Incarnum. It's monky+sneaky. Three levels gets you hide in plain sight and concealment and some sneak attack. Too bad you don't use ToB, shadow sun ninja is pretty awesome as well. Swordsage by itself is zogm for this. Oh well.

You may want to look into Dread Commando if you have Heroes of Battle. Avenging Executioner, Combat Trapsmith and Uncanny Trickster are all good choices to augment your combat as well each are from Complete Scoundrel. In Complete Adventurer there is Nightsong Inflitrator and Nightsong Enforcer.

 

[pawsplay]

The thing about ninja invisibility is that it lasts for one round. Thus, you really should be thinking about full-round attacks using two weapons and possibly Fighter specialization feats. It's not the only way to go, but it's definitely worth thinking about. Ninja X/SD 1 is good in that respect, add Fighter to taste.