Halfling Hurler (3.5e Optimized Character Build)

Introduction

The halfling hurler (which doesn't actually have to be a halfling) is a simple Rogue-only build to show how you can make the Rogue decently powerful and playable at every level of the game. The halfling hurler is not as powerful as the Wizard, Cleric, or Druid, but is capable of sitting down at the same table with such classes and playing the same game.

The build is called the 'halfling hurler' because most of the time you'll want to throw flasks of acid or alchemist's fire. They're really sweet because they strike as touch attacks without using wraithstrike!

References

• SRD
• Spell Compendium.

Game Rule Components

Spells, Powers, Soulmelds, Stances, etc...

• Blink
• Gravestrike (from Spell Compendium)
• Golemstrike (from Spell Compendium)

Items

• Lots of acid and alchemist's fire.
• Ring of Blink.
• Wands of Gravestrike and Golem's Strike.
• Other normal rogue things, which probably includes lots of scrolls.

Progression

Starting Ability Scores (Before Racial Adjustments): High intelligence, high dexterity. Normal rogue stuff.

Race Choice

Deep Halfling is probably the best choice, for +2 dex, +1 to attacks for being small, and -another- +1 to hit with thrown weapons (seriously). You also get darkvision if you care. Otherwise, go human if you want an extra feat. You probably shouldn't need it, though.

ECL	Class/HD/LA	Base Attack Bonus	Saving Throws			Feats	Class Features
			Fort	Ref	Will
1st	Rogue 1	+0	+0	+2	+0	Point Blank Shot	Sneak Attack +1d6, Trapfinding
2nd	Rogue 2	+1	+0	+3	+0	-	Evasion
3rd	Rogue 3	+2	+1	+3	+1	Rapid Shot	Sneak Attack +2d6, Trap Sense +1
4th	Rogue 4	+3	+1	+4	+1	-	Uncanny Dodge
5th	Rogue 5	+3	+1	+4	+1	-	Sneak Attack +3d6
6th	Rogue 6	+4	+2	+5	+2	Weapon Finesse	Trap Sense +2
7th	Rogue 7	+5	+2	+5	+2	-	Sneak Attack +4d6
8th	Rogue 8	+6	+2	+6	+2	-	Improved Uncanny Dodge
9th	Rogue 9	+6	+3	+6	+3	Precise Shot	Sneak Attack +5d6, Trap Sense +3
10th	Rogue 10	+7	+3	+7	+3	-	Special Ability (feat (Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting))
11th	Rogue 11	+8	+3	+7	+3	-	Sneak Attack +6d6
12th	Rogue 12	+9	+4	+8	+4	Whatever	Trap Sense +4
13th	Rogue 13	+9	+4	+8	+4	-	Sneak Attack +7d6, Special Ability
14th	Rogue 14	+10	+4	+9	+4	-	-
15th	Rogue 15	+11	+5	+9	+5	Whatever	Sneak Attack +8d6, Trap Sense +5
16th	Rogue 16	+12	+5	+10	+5	-	Special Ability
17th	Rogue 17	+12	+5	+10	+5	-	Sneak Attack +9d6
18th	Rogue 18	+13	+6	+11	+6	Whatever	Trap Sense +6
19th	Rogue 19	+14	+6	+11	+6	-	Sneak Attack +10d6, Special Ability
20th	Rogue 20	+15	+6	+12	+6	-	-

Other Components

You've got a lot of free feats that you can use on whatever you feel like. You also need to get a few items when you can afford them:

• Acid/Alchemist's fire. Lots of this. Acid should start being affordable in those quantities around level 3.
• Ring of Blink. You should have one by level 10, I think.
• Wands of Gravestrike and Golemstrike. They're 1800 gold a piece, and they have 50 charges. You'll probably end up going through at most one wand through your entire adventuring career. Pick them up early, they are helpful. I think there's another spell for some other sneak-attack-immune creature. Get a wand of that too.
• An item that hastes you. Not really important, pick it up whenever. It just gives you another attack and a +1 to hit.

Highlights

There are two important things to note here:

• Bonus feats, unless otherwise qualified, can ignore prerequisites (source: Monster Manual). The rogue's bonus feat from Special Ability is not otherwise qualified, and can ignore prerequisites. We use it to pick up Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting. If you don't want to be like that, you can use your free feats to pick it up whenever you feel like it.

• When you're blinking, your opponent counts as flat-footed. In addition, ranged weapons do not have the miss chance normally associated with Blink (it's the same rule that makes stuff dropped when you're enlarged turn back to normal size). If you don't want to do things that way, you could also pick up an Eversmoking Bottle and a Blindfold of True Darkness to make all your opponents flat-footed all the time.

This build is playable at every level in the game. At level 1, you're a normal rogue. Life is cheap at level 1, don't sweat it.

At level 5 you can afford acid and have Rapid Shot, so you're throwing two acid flasks a round. They strike as touch attacks so they'll probably hit, giving you a pretty good 8d6 damage a round. I don't think anyone can really beat that at level 5.

At level 10, you've really come into your own. You can afford a Ring of Blink, so you no longer need to flank with anyone to get all your attacks as touch attacks. You've also picked up Perfect TWF, so you have an equal number of off-hand attacks as you do normal attacks. You can probably guess what you'll do with those: throw more stuff! So now you get 5 attacks which all strike as flat-footed touch attacks, dealing a total of 30d6 damage per round.

From there it's pretty much more of the same.

Wands of Gravestrike and Golemstrike and the like are great, they let you bypass the sneak attack immunity of those sorts of creatures. They're swift-action spells too, so you can activate them as a swift action and then take your full attack. If you want to have a bunch of +1 throwing daggers on you too for creatures that might be immune to both acid and fire (though it's up in the air whether that makes them immune to the sneak attack damage resulting from those flasks), that's probably a good idea. Get a wand of Wraithstrike (also swift action) so they strike as touch attacks too.

Have a strength bonus! Or at least not a strength penalty. Bonus damage from strength can add up. Use some of your wealth for a belt of +6 strength, it's useful!

Limitations

Obviously, sneak-attack immune stuff is painful. You're a rogue, so that's normal. But that's why you have wands. And there are more spells out there to bypass sneak attack immunity, I just don't know what they're called.

DM Tricks

Actually, Blink works differently then the Enlarged Person rules: while both magic effects end when you drop something, in the case of Blink, you would actually be dropping the item into another (Ethereal) dimension. Like throwing an item at a portal just as the portal shuts, the item will simply fall into whichever plane it happens to be on in when it's thrown; if the monster's in the other dimension, then the item wouldn't hit it. Thus, the miss chance for attacking extends to thrown weapons as well.

The Eversmoking bottle option can be countered by throwing enemies without eyes or that are naturally blind at him, thus preventing FF status. Also, anything that's big and has wings could probably just fly in place and blow the smoke out of the way (especially Dragons, which actually have something similiar in their special attack descriptions).

---

Back to Main Page → 3.5e Homebrew → Optimized Character Builds