I'm working on a character for a new game, and keep going back and forth between a variety of build options, none of which I'm entirely satisfied with. So I thought I'd see if someone else had ideas to help me squeeze all I can into it. The concept is a sneaky guy who uses psychic powers and skills to act as a kind of detective. The game starts at 5th level, allows about everything as far as material, and is set in a custom world with some house rules I'm going to ignore for now. We're using partial BAB and saves, and 34 pt buy. The original build stub I had was:
Human Ranger 2/Ardent 2/Swordsage 11 Ranger 1 Weapon Finesse, Wild Talent (Vigor), Track, Psicrystal Affinity, Able Learner
2 Ardent 1 Charm, Dimension Hop
3 Ranger 2 Practiced Manifester, (TWF)
4 Ardent 2 Clairvoyant Sense
5 Swordsage 1 (Discipline Focus)
I took Wild Talent so I could get Psicrystal Affinity at 1st (when I can afford the feats for it), and ranger for skills, Track (to enter Slayer later), and BAB (to qualify for Weapon Finesse at 1st). The ardent mantles for this one would be Deception, Fate, and Freedom. I'm also using the Getting Rewired material to basically add a few powers known to his repertoire.
More build details:
[spoiler]
Stats (34 pt buy):Wis 16 (10)
Dex 16 (8)(+1 at 4th)
Con 14 (6)
Int 14 (6)
Str 10 (2)
Cha 10 (2)
Powers Known: Vigor, Charm, Dimension Hop, Clairvoyant Sense
Mantles: Freedom, Deception, and Fate (The cake is a lie.)
Equipment (8300/9000 gp): Boots of Agile Leaping (600 gp) and MW tumble tool (50 gp), Least Weapon Crystal of Revelation (400 gp), Chronocharm of the Horizon Walker (500 gp),
Gloves of Object Reading (3000 gp),
reusable Psionic Tattoos (3000 gp, see below), Wand of Lesser Vigor (750 gp)
Tattoos (3000 gp total, 7/20 slots)
[spoiler]Integrated Circuit (50)
Capacitor (1250)
Transducer (1250)
Elfsight (50)
Chameleon (50)
Share Pain (300)
Forcescreen (50)
[/spoiler]
Maneuvers/Stances Known
[spoiler]
StancesChild of Shadow (SH1) - Move 10+', gain concealment for the round. Can't use this to hide.
ManeuversSkills: Gather Info, Spot, Listen, Sense Motive, Hide, Move Silently, Autohypnosis (1 rank), Tumble (enough for a +14 bonus), Knowledge (dungeoneering) 4 ranks.
Variants:Skilled City-Dweller: Replace Handle Animal, Knowledge (Nature), Survival, and Ride with Gather Information, Knowledge (local), Sense Motive, and Tumble.
Psicrystal Feats: Mindsight (at 6th), 2 others (Martial Study/Martial Stance/soulmeld stuff?)
Personality: Nimble (+2 Initiative)
I would love to fit in a level of barbarian for pounce (Lion Totem, CC) and
whirling frenzy, but it is hard to drop any of the stuff that I have... [/spoiler]
Future progression would be something like:
[spoiler]6 Ardent 3 Shadow Blade
Danger Sense7 Ardent 4 (new mantle)
Psionic Fly 8 SS2 (Wis to AC, Assassin's Stance)
9 Slayer 1 Staggering Strike (CAdv)
10+ Slayer 2+
Teleport[/spoiler]
This guy is going to be terrible at dishing out damage until he gains a level, but he should be quite handy out of combat with the awesome of Object Reading and Clairvoyant Sense, and with Vigor, Share Pain, and a Psicrystal he'll be hard to kill also. At 6th+, his combat abilities start to catch up quite well with Dex to damage, and then +2d6 sneak attack and Wis to AC at 8th.
However, I'd like him to have a bit of combat offense starting out, and also like to maybe get the Staggering Strike feat from CAdv. So then I started tinkering around with alternatives, and came up with these two variants, which I'm still not that happy with.
Alt Builds: [spoiler]
Thug SA Ftr 1/Ardent 2/PW1/SS11 Thug SA Ftr 1 Weapon Finesse, TWF, Track, Able Learner
2 Ardent 1 Charm, Vigor
3 Psychic Warrior 1 Practiced Manifester, Psicrystal Affinity, (Dimension Hop)
4 Ardent 2 Clairvoyant Sense
5 Swordsage 1 (Discipline Focus)
Rgr1/Ardent 2/HuP1/SS1/HuP+2/SS+1/1 Ranger 1 Weapon Finesse, Wild Talent (Vigor), Track, Psicrystal Affinity, Able Learner
2 Ardent 1 Charm, Dimension Hop
3 HuP1 Practiced Manifester
4 Ardent 2 Clairvoyant Sense
5 Swordsage 1 (Discipline Focus)
6 HuP2 Shadow Blade, Staggering Strike (doesn't qualify, as this build lacks SA till 8th...)
Pick up Gloves of the Balanced Hands for TWF (8000 gp), and the 2nd level of ranger later to upgrade it to ITFW.
[/spoiler]So overall, I'd like skills, psionics, TWF, and sneak attack, but it's hard to cram all that into one build, especially at lowish levels.