Help me with a 1st level Ranger that will prestige into Assassin

[Dusk Eclipse]

Does anybody have suggestion on how to build an assassin character, that is playable all through 20 levels?

I though on going Ranger 2/Rogue 5/Assassin (maybe even psychic assassin as per Secrets of Sarlona)/something 5. The problem is that I don't how to to build it, I haven't built low-level characters in ages.

The only thing that is set in stone, is the race Lesser Tiefling

here are the character creation outlines

40 point buy ( thinking on going on a 16 14, 16, 14, 14 10 spread)
Access to any 3.5 books, but I must check first with the DM
2 traits, 2 flaws per character
No alignment restriction
Only LA +0 races (hence lesser instead of normal tiefling)

So help please?

[Rejakor]

This is important - assassin /type/ character, or Assassin prestige class?  Because the Assassin prestige class does a piss poor attempt at being an assassin.  You're much better off with a Shadow Hand swordsage, or a Ninja, or hell, even a Rogue.

There's lots of ways to go.  Rogue/Wizard/Unseen Seer/ArcTrick, nets you all kinds of delicious spellcastery bullshit.

Thrower rogue, the ever-sucky melee rogue/ninja/whatever.

You could build a melee build (pouncer, chain tripper, dualhit/rip/robilar's/imptrip) and then give it hide in plain sight, hide, move silently.  Ranger does alright at that if that's what you're after, ranger X/fighter 2.

You could build an archer swift hunter build, give it shot on the run or travel devotion, and then mainly focus on using hide to snipe with full attacks or Manyshot with lots of skirmish + ranger BAB goodness.

An interesting idea i've always liked is the Cragtop Archer PrC focusing on various things that add to single shot damage - splitting, Power Shot, skirmish, composite bow, magic, spell storing arrow etc, so you shoot a guy from a couple K away and drop him in one hit.  Could do something similar with Spellwarp Sniper and one of the snowcasting blaster builds.

But yeah, if you want to stab things in the back, you've got a couple choices.

Thrower Rogue.

Self-buffer Rogue (Unseen Seer gish, or psywar/egoist selfbuffer/gish).

Dagger Rogue! (you suck hard)

Dagger Ninja! (you suck slightly less but still fairly hard)

Melee Build w/ Hide!  (You're a melee build... with hide!)

[Dusk Eclipse]

I want to use the assassin class, mostly because of the spells, Assassin's get a few nice spells (mostly in spell compendium and some in champions of Ruin); so unless there is away to add the whole assassin spell list to any other class, I think I would have to use the class.

Scratch the part about psionic assassin by the way...

[Littha]

I want to use the assassin class, mostly because of the spells, Assassin's get a few nice spells (mostly in spell compendium and some in champions of Ruin); so unless there is away to add the whole assassin spell list to any other class, I think I would have to use the class.

Scratch the part about psionic assassin by the way...

There are ways, they just generally involve a whole load of cheese.... or archivists.

Alternatively Artificers can craft items of assassin spells and are generally much better in every regard.

[Dusk Eclipse]

mmmm not sure on Artificer, for what I garner from Artificers they take a bit to get into their strides.

Keep coming the ideas please

[Rejakor]

UMD.

Wand of <Spell That You Like>.

By the time you enter assassin you can afford wands.


That said if you're after the fluffy goodness of an assassin using his sneaky assassin power to quieten his footsteps etc and Heartripper some unsuspecting mooks to make his exit, then that's alright too, just keep in mind that you are going to need Lifestealing Spellstoring hand weapons, cheesy magic items, Assassin's Stance and Shadow Jaunt, some way of hiding in plain sight or continuous invisibility, a hat of nondetection, poison use and poisons (sassone leaf residue is a nice one), some kind of animal companion that doesn't suck (Although you might want to to go for a rat or something to spy on people and complete the image, if so, get some nasty other thing and use handle animal/gold pieces to get it trained - like a fleshraker or a wyvern).

Also Evasion.  And if you can get it, Mettle.

[CantripN]

Chameleons make great Assassins! Oh, and they do have the Assassin spell-list, just a hell of a lot sooner, and better.

Hexblade 3 / Ninja 2 / Chameleon 10 / XXX 5? Not the most powerful entry, but it's not bad.

Just use Human Heritage to count as Human, if you have to be Lesser Tiefling.

Feats:
Flaw - Human Heritage
Flaw - Able Learner
1st - Darkstalker
3rd - FREE
6th - FREE
9th - FREE
12th - FREE
15th - FREE
18th - FREE

[ninjarabbit]

spellthief1/wizard4/assassin1/ultimatemagus10/unseen seer4

Key feats: master spellthief, practiced spellcaster on both sides

9th level wizard spells, 4th level assassin spells, both with insane CLs if you do it right

[Rebel7284]

spellthief1/wizard4/assassin1/ultimatemagus10/unseen seer4

Key feats: master spellthief, practiced spellcaster on both sides

9th level wizard spells, 4th level assassin spells, both with insane CLs if you do it right

-1 Assassin, +1 Bard, +1 Sublime Chord.