Halfling Bard Thrower
12/4/4 – Bard/Artificer/Rogue
12 bard for: Past life, Spells, 4th core of swashbuckler, 20% moving speed bonus, more time on displacement, cure serious and some nice stuff on top of it.
4 Artificer for: Rune arm use, Bonus feat, elemental weapons buff, other minor spells, Dog that can stand on tiles.
4 Rogue for: Evasion, Venomed Blades, Killer.
Halfling for: +4/+5/+4 saves, dex to damage with throwing weapons.

Starting stats:
Strenght: 10
Dexterity: 20
Constitution: 14
Wisdom: 10
Intelligence: 14
Charisma: 10

Heroic Feats:
1.      Point Blank Shot
2.      Precision
3.      Rapid Shot
4.      Improved Critical
5.      Extend
6.      Quick Draw
7.      Precise Shot
8.      Improved Precise Shot
Epic Feats:
1.      Empower Heal
2.      Bulwark of Defense
3.      Lasting Inspiration/Epic skill focus: Perform
4.      Epic Reflexes
5.      Doubleshot

Epic destiny of choice:
Shiradi champion.

Epic Twists:
1.      Sense Weakness
2.      Extra Action Boost
3.      Lithe/Rejuvenation Cocoon

Enchantements:

(Halfling tree will need to be reseted a couple of times):
Halfling tree:
Core 1,
Core 2,
Core 3,
Core 4,
Core 5,
Acrobatic tier I and II (Filler)
Nimble reaction tier I
Skillful Thrower
12 AP spend
In total: 12 AP spend

Swashbuckler tree:
Core 1,
Core 2,
Core 3,
Core 4,
On Your Toes Tier I, II, III,
Limber Up Tier I, II, III, (filler mostly)
Deflect Arrows,
Fast Movement,
Double Shot Boost Tier I, II, III,
Swashbuckling Style Cannoneer,
Resonant Arms,
Dexterity,
Musix Box/Tune Arm,
Wind At My Back,
Dexterity II,
Thread The Needle,
Second Skin I, II, III,
Exploit Weaknesses,
Coup De Grace,
AP spend: 41
Total AP spend: 53

Assasin Tree:
Core 1,
Toxin Affinity I, II, III, (mainly Filler)
Stealthy I, II, III, (partly filler, but I also LOVE sneaking around –the difference between sneaking and invis is just huge),
Venomed Blades I, II, III,
Critical Accuracy I, II, III,
Dexterity,
Sneak Attack Training,
Critical Damage, I, II, III,
Killer I, II, III,
Ap spend: 26,
Total AP spend: 79

That last AP will either go for Nimble reaction Tier II/Improved dodge Tier I or first core of Rogue Mechanic. Will depend how I will feel like.

Now, I need someone to either confirm that Venomed blades work with throwing weapons, or that they dont.
If they dont, I will reevaluate – Killer is VERY good and quite honetly, bard thrower needs it. But at the same time, most of the AP would become fillers in that tree.
You may have noticed that I am not going for max possible dex – the reason is simple – I am not going to use shurikens. Thus, I will not benefit from dex as much as I would have. I still want it high for reflex and to dmg and to hit, but its not have all/break all for this build.
This build will be using throwing axes prefferably for best base dmg dice and awesome crit multiplier. But generally, I can use whatever (except for shuriken, obviously) and I will definitely be using Nightforge Spike before I get to my precrafted GS throwing axe.  Eventually, I will be using Spellpague throwers, cause they are the best. End game will be Thunderforged.

What the build CAN do:
Take care of every single trap/lock/secret passage in the game.
Sneak
Sing
Solo EE
Selfheal
Selfbuff and buff other ppl
Get UMD sky high.
Evade almost anything.

What the build CANNOT do:

Overdps Monk thrower.
Be backup healer significantly better then anyone else with cocoon.
Pretend to be real Crowd Controller in the tradicional sense.
Throw Shurikens.
Do anything that is not bard-artie-rogue-thrower related.
Go into „somehow“ functioning meele.

Queastion and Answers:
1.      Q: Why arent you using Shuriken?
A: Because it has very low base dmg (1d2) and unlike monk thrower, I would only get one shuriken exclusive ability that would allow me to throw more of them (compared to 3 shuriken exclusive abilities for monks). Also, It would cost me 2 feats or going drow and loosing dex to damage. Either way, I am better without it – swasbuckling actually offers possibility of –more or less- interesting throwing base and crit damage.
2.      Q: Why not go with Ftr splash for more feats and stuff?
A: I like evasion. I dont think its necessary for EE or anything like that, but it fits my playstyle. And I simply want Artificer in the mix for the 2d6 + rune arm imbuement dmg + rare proc rune arm ability + whatever else that is on runearm.
3.      Q: Why not drop mist of the bard in favor of…….?
A: I want bard past life.
4.      Q: You know you wont be proficient with Throwing axes?
A: I have Masters Touch. I admit that recasting it after every heal scroll will be a little PITA, but I can live with it. When I grab Emp heal, I will prolly stop using heal scrolls, so it will be only heroic level inconvinience.



And thats all.

YOu are welcome to tear it to pieces

Vic wrote on Jun 18^th, 2014 at 11:38am:


Requires you to be in a defensive stance for any benefit.

Swashbuckling is no longer considered a defensive stance, your only option in your build as laid out is defensive fighting...  Which means turning off precision, that seems like a bad idea.

Bulkwark of Defense is essentially useless for the build as you've laid it out.

is it certain that single weapon fighting isn't applying either the speed or the double stat bonus to thrown weapons?

Munkenmo wrote on Jun 18^th, 2014 at 12:02pm:


Sadly, yes.

Imo, going 13bard/3rogue/4arty is a little better then 12bard/4rogue/4arty.
You get the spell Mind Fog, which if thrown with a dancing ball, makes for basically everything failing the dancing DC.
3 rogue will also be enough to get you Shadow Dodge, which is quite beneficial.
I do believe i heard somewhere that Venomed Blades is busted, and not working properly with throwers.

Lelouch wrote on Jun 23^rd, 2014 at 1:21pm:



Hello,

my gaming pc is currently being repaired, so I am cheking from my non-gaming pc. for that reason, I havent even updated this build, which I will do when my gamic PC comas back home...

About the fog - Lelouch is, technically, correct. Nothing to add here, its useless.

About the dragonmark - there are several reasons not to take it:

1.This build is feat starved. I cannot afford spenidng one more feat. I would have to throw away something, that matters for my playstyle. Your personal prefference my differ and you may be considering some of my listed feats as non-uimportant. In which case, go ahead and swap.

2. Dragonmark is how much? 4 Heal spells if I rememer correctly? While nice in heroic content, its pretty much useless in epic, especially if we take in consideration that I will have acces to empowered cure critical... and potentially cocoon.

3. Bulwark and stuff will be switched for shurken prof and shuriken profiniency. It is, sadly, that much ahead in DPS taht I must go that way in epics.

4. While Shadow dodge is nice, Killer is much nicer. Especially on this build. If I would see some benefit from different class split (5 artie or 13 bard) I would go that way and lower my priorities on shadow dodge. Alas, I dont see any benefit from these.

5. Can anyone else confirm/disprove that Venomed blades dont work with trowing weapons?

Arbitoroflife wrote on Jun 23^rd, 2014 at 7:38pm:


You mean assasinate ?  It always prevented me from using attacks from sneak, but it never prevented my sneak attack dice from being applied.  Just get a deception item and your set.

Arbitoroflife wrote on Jun 23^rd, 2014 at 9:37pm:


I meant envenomed blades prevents Assasinate, or abilities that depend on sneak.  Envenomed blades does not prevent sneak attack dice.