Talk:Machine Gun Assassin (3.5e Optimized Character Build)

Questions
How do you get 3 feats at first level? Also what book is the Master Thrower in?--Lord Mattos 03:13, December 3, 2009 (UTC)


 * 1st lvl feat and two flaws probably (or human and one flaw). And Complete Warrior. -- Eiji Hyrule 04:03, December 3, 2009 (UTC)


 * What he said. --Ghostwheel 04:44, December 3, 2009 (UTC)


 * Me again. How are the attacks touch attacks? --Lord Mattos 19:54, March 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * Master Thrower's Thrown Weapon Trick: Weak Spot. --Ghostwheel 21:37, March 6, 2010 (UTC)

Epic Level?
And if it makes a difference, if one wanted to play this build into epic levels, read the magical weapon abilities listed in the epic level handbook. (I forgot the name but) there is a magical property that grants your weapon the property of splitting into two more, a total of three, shuriken being thrown per individual shuriken. (67.82.169.209 05:05, December 26, 2009 (UTC)Some guy again late at night)

Alternative for Last 2 Levels
Lose 2 ninja levels (1d6 sudden strike and ghost mind) for 2monk levels for a bonus feat (aesthetic stalker can be taken as a monk bonus feat) and something else (combat reflexes maybe). You gain level 15 monk unarmed strike damage (1d10 for a small sized guy). With a monk's belt, that is level 20 monk damage (2d8). Not a bad way to add a little melee versatility. You can also flurry with shurikens, so it might end up increasing your final damage. --Andrew Arnott (talk, email) 19:33, May 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the suggestion! Adding it to the "variants" section. --Ghostwheel 20:58, May 18, 2010 (UTC)

Another Alternative
Three levels will lose you 2d6 sudden strike and ghost mind, but can net you Exotic Weapon Master. Pick up Flurry of Strikes, Close Quarters Ranged Combat (So you don't need a melee weapon), and Twin Exotic Weapon Fighting (Which reduce your 2wF Penalties by 1, giving you an extra +1 to attack). Mostly because if you drop even 1 level of Ninja for Monk, you lose an attack because your BAB isn't high enough (15/10/5). But if you sack 3, you lose 2d6 sneak attack damage and actually get an extra attack, which can then benefit from palm throw and skip rock abilities (+17/+12/+7/+2).

To be an even bigger wank, you could take two levels in exotic weapon master, picking up Close Quarters Combat, and Flurry of Strikes, then take 1 level of monk and get ANOTHER attack at -2, all the while still keeping your shiny extra attack from BAB (+16/+11/+6/+1) So you'd take a -4 Penalty to attack rolls for 2 extra attacks. So even though your Damage Per Attack goes down by 7 points to 61, since you're now getting 10 Attacks, your DPR just shot up to 610, but you lose the ability to use skiprocks. It's a matter of what you want more. DPR, or Attacks per Round. STDoc 06:10, May 27, 2010 (UTC)


 * Minor Edit. And of course, you could grab ascetic stalker to get some nifty ki strike and unarmed strike. But that's about it.STDoc 07:04, May 27, 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the suggestion--I'll add it soon under "variants". --Ghostwheel 18:18, May 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * Checked it over, and EWM is pretty useless. Flurry can only be done with a double weapon, you're making touch attacks so all the shurikens are bound to hit, and if you're in melee you're doing it wrong--and you've got invis at will. Thanks for the suggestion though. --Ghostwheel 04:11, May 28, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not seeing where it says you can only use a double weapon. The SRD and PHB both say you can only use special monk weapons and the shuriken is one of them. Flurry of Blows --PixieDragon 01:26, 18 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I was referring to the Exotic Weapon Master's "Flurry of Strikes" ability, that says that the weapon designated must be a double weapon, or a spiked chain. Since we're making touch attacks, Twin Exotic Weapon Fighting doesn't matter too much, and you don't need to be in melee (and are invisible much of the time) so Close Quarters Ranged Combat doesn't do that much for you either. --Ghostwheel 04:03, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Useful and Economical "Item"
A useful and economical "item" that might be worth mentioning is having a permanent reduce person spell cast on your character. It costs 3040 gp for a 9th level character to cast it on you (or 3700 gp for a 20th level character if you are worried about dispels). You'll get +2 AC, +2 to hit at the cost of 2 strength. You don't even suffer damage loss and you don't really care about reach. Also you get a hide bonus, which is always nice. --Andrew Arnott (talk, email) 15:27, May 28, 2010 (UTC)


 * If I did that, I don't think the shuriken itself will deal any damage, and I believe that that's a prerequisite for dealing the precision damage... --Ghostwheel 19:12, May 28, 2010 (UTC)


 * Why would it not deal damage? It returns to normal size the instant it leaves your possession. - TarkisFlux 00:00, May 29, 2010 (UTC)


 * FYI the die under 1d2 is just 1, which is a valid damage about, though it isn't rolled so you can't pull tricks with ti that depend on rolling max or min. -- Eiji Hyrule 04:30, May 29, 2010 (UTC)


 * i think GW means that it already does 1 damage, any smaller is...weird. whats smaller than 1? it may work by RAW, but it just gets ridiculous. but the reduce person +thrown isn't a bad idea--NameViolation 04:35, May 29, 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh yeah, in RAW you're fine, it's still 1 damage. But yeah, it gets silly after a while.  "The Micro-Fine pixie hits you with a tiny club the size of a dust mite.  Take as much damage as you would a soft punch." -- Eiji Hyrule 05:02, May 29, 2010 (UTC)

Teleporting
Where is the teleporting weapon mod from? I looked through the mentioned books for it. Also, you run through expensive ammunition very quickly, unless there's some trick to keep your shurikens from being destroyed on a hit or lost 50% of the time on a miss. -Cedges 04:52, June 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * I found teleporting in the Expanded Psionics Handbook on page 167. -Cedges 04:55, June 8, 2010 (UTC)

Some More Options
Drop Improved Precise Shot and pick up 'Brutal Throw' from Complete Adventurer.

Even some relatively high level critters and characters have really, really, REALLY abysmal Touch AC's. If you're hitting touch AC 20, why waste that +16 throwing a +38 attack when you could drop an extra 16 damage on them, the equivalent of another 4 dice or so? The math gets slightly more complicated, but you can fairly easily do an extra 30 points of damage per round.

For extreme cheese, don't forget to poison your throwing weapons. Nothing says 'Suck HP, Evildoer' like Con damage from rolling a 1 on a save. Best mixed with the Flurry feats to give them more opportunities to get that 1.


 * cant power attack with light weapons, and lacks the 13 str pre req to powerattack for the more damage. --NameViolation 23:20, July 26, 2010 (UTC)


 * +1 to Strength is not hard to come by, especially by level 20. A spare +1 Tome nobody wants or a wish, and you're golden.
 * I'm fairly certain Brutal Throw doesn't have the restriction for light weapons, seeing as most thrown weapons are light weight, but I'll have to check the books when I get home. 198.247.174.247 20:23, July 27, 2010 (UTC)


 * brutal throw lets you use str instead of dex for ranged attack rolls, so i guess you could totally rebuild and focus on str and have a crappy ac, but as is brutal throw would do nothing. plus, focusing on str rather than dex means the dex isnt high enough for all the twf feats, which means 8d6x # of attacks lost less damage.
 * I was thinking of power throw that lets you power attack with ranged weapons, and power attack states "You can’t add the bonus from Power Attack to the damage dealt with a light weapon (except with unarmed strikes or natural weapon attacks), even though the penalty on attack rolls still applies." --NameViolation 21:06, July 27, 2010 (UTC)


 * Shurikens are ranged not light so technically power throw would work, however you can already add Str to damage with a shuriken, at least monks can using flurry of blows. --PixieDragon 01:37, 18 March 2012 (UTC)