Scouting for a Scout

[Greenfield]

I'm planning to use a high level Scout (level 18+) in a campaign scene.

32 point build per DMG, and generally avoiding MIC as a source book.

If someone already has one built, it could save me some time.

Yeah, I know, I'm being lazy. It's a pretty much straight build but the game is tomorrow and I'm at work where I don't have access to my normal resources.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

You want a pure scout with nothing else like ranger levels for Swift Hunter, even without spells? What sort of thing do you want the scout able to do?

Or is 18th level specifically for the permanent extraordinary Freedom of Movement?

 

[Greenfield]

18th is nice for that aspect. 20th is nice for Blindsight.

Over all, though, I'm looking for an NPC support character for a high/higher level BBEG. I'm not married to the pure class idea, it just needs to be fairly simple to run, effectively, without having to dedicate my DM time to driving him.

He may or may not survive the encounter. I hope he does. But I want him to be a serious threat to PC types who have pretty much bet the farm on their stealth abilities. A good sniper with a good Spot and an equally good stealth capacity would work nicely.

Of course, I could do the same with any arcane caster who has a Familiar, and the right feat to let the Familiar do/maintain a Detect Magic.

But more seriously, I need a decent combatant, and Scout has some nice features that play nicely against this group.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

What specific abilities (or lack of abilities on part of the players) make scout a good choice against this group? If it's in a natural setting then the camo and HIPS would work and then you can do a ranged build with Greater Many Shot to get skirmish on every arrow and allow shooting at several different enemies at once while still being decently sneaky. It takes several feats though.

If the party has any of blindsense, blindsight, scent, or tremorsense then you'll pretty much need darkstalker to be sneaky.

 

[Greenfield]

1) Blindsense helps him track stealth artists.
2) The group, as a whole, isn't that familiar with the class, so there can be some surprises.
3) The Skirmish ability gives him good damage output, particularly when coupled with a decent magic bow.
4) His stealth capacity makes him hard for the PCs to keep track of in combat.

I could go on, but his abilities, as a package, make him a decent (not overwhelming) foil for some of the combat tricks some of my players have come to rely on.

I'm changing the flavor of the conflict with this encounter.

Over all, my weakness as a DM is that I tend to softball the battles. I'd like not to do that this time.

 

[Jackinthegreen]

I wouldn't exactly call skirmish "good damage." It's half the effectiveness of sneak attack, and there are many ways to get SA to work well for range unless your party has several people with Uncanny Dodge. But if it would be considered good damage for your purposes then we can definitely do something.

That said, how much do you expect the character to move? If it's able to move 20 feet before shooting then the Improved Skirmish feat will add decently to damage. Assuming the character is indeed in a natural environment then the Woodland Archer feat's Moving Sniper ability might work. (Edit: I just remembered that it's only on a regular attack action, not Greater Manyshot's standard, so you wouldn't be able to do Manyshot sniping.)

Any race preferences? Something small with a 30 feet speed would work well due to hiding and such, so a whisper gnome for example. They get great stealth bonuses and are still quick enough to actually do something like this.

You might want to look at http://community.wizards.com/comment/20731126#comment-20731126 for a full build. *shrug*

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

What about the cheap ways to gain Telepathy and use the Mindsight feat to pinpoint those stealthy party members?