Highwayman Build Advice

[Seven Sons of Sin]

Give me a build for the classic highwayman - the carriage-robber, road-mugger, dashing beguiler, for-the-people-by-the-people rogue, innkeepers-hide-your-black-eyed-daughters, kind of highwayman.

Mechanically, the requirements are:

- needs some form of stealth or getaway
- needs some form of stealth or "surprise I'm right here"
- Disguise is mandatory
- has to be fairly "get up and go" mechanically and can't be too buff-dependent
- ways to immobilize his rich victims
- Disarm?

Thanks!

[Shadowy Reality]

A ranger/fighter/rogue maybe?

Stealth, Hips in wilderness areas, disguise, trap to cover retreat or the targets escape path, needs few to no buffs.

No immobilization though.

[Hunter548]

Ranger or a dex WM probably. I dunno if you'll have any way to immobilize without wands/stunning fist on a melee character unfortunately.

Former can be strength or dex based as you wish. Ranger 21/Fighter 6/Rogue or Bard 3

Latter is Rogue 13/Fighter 10/WM 7

[R0GUE]

I would argue for a Rogue/Bard because with bard you can use Perform to disguise and Hold Person to immobilize. Then add levels of Fighter or a Prestige Class like Shadowdancer.

[Baron Saturday]

Assassin would be really good for the darkness/UV and invis/expeditious retreat toolkit, but it sounds like you want to make a non-evil character?

[Dorkas]

Get some friends and all make tribal barbarians, create a whole gang of bandits and pick on ppl, hehe.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

With a str-based bard build, does 20 levels of bard afford you being able to take whatever janky stuff you want afterwards because you're already pretty good? My only experience is really with bardadins and bardfighters.

Could you manage with a 20 bard/5 ranger/5 Shadowdancer? Or a 20 bard/5 rogue/5 Shadowdancer? Do you need 4 APR if you can self-haste until kingdom come?

Bard seems to be the most synergistic because it by itself ticks off a lot of the boxes, I'm just wondering what other classes would either shore up it's weaknesses or further enhance the highwayman.

[R0GUE]

From what I've read, level 16 is the sweet spot for bards, where you start getting diminishing returns after that bc the bard song doesn't get that much better. So if you aren't doing pure bard, it might be better to put 4 more levels somewhere into those other two classes.

[Baron Saturday]

16 is the sweet spot for bard SONG, to be precise. If planning to do any casting, I'd highly advise going deeper into the class or risk having your spells shrugged off by anyone with SR. Bard 22/Knight Vanguard 8 could be interesting... Between curse song, PDK fear, and mind fog, you can pretty well dumpster anyone's will save and set them up for a hold spell. PDK would also get you enough AB for a 4th APR. At 21 levels of bard, GSF Transmutation gives you -teleport, allowing for quick getaways.

[R0GUE]

16 is the sweet spot for bard SONG, to be precise. If planning to do any casting, I'd highly advise going deeper into the class or risk having your spells shrugged off by anyone with SR. Bard 22/Knight Vanguard 8 could be interesting... Between curse song, PDK fear, and mind fog, you can pretty well dumpster anyone's will save and set them up for a hold spell. PDK would also get you enough AB for a 4th APR. At 21 levels of bard, GSF Transmutation gives you -teleport, allowing for quick getaways.

Thanks for that clarification Baron.

[Baron Saturday]

Always happy to pedantically helpful!

[The1Kobra]

I'd recommend going for something like Rogue/Fighter/Shadowdancer, rogue can get you the skills you need, bluff, hide, MS, etc, fighter will help you hit stuff in combat. It's not very buff dependant either, just pop out of stealth weapons drawn and you can go straight to the sneak attacks. SD's HIPS can help you get out of sticky situations. A 19/6/5 combo should work nicely.

[MoreThanThree]

Battlecleric, use Greater Sanc for stealth.