Any Stealthy Spellcaster builds?

[Vhah]

After doing something weird in my at home Pen and Paper game, I was curious if theres any atleast semi-viable builds revolving around a mix of stealth and spellcasting. Something atleast PVE oreinted as PVP isn't something I seek often. I lean more towards RP but I know that not having a good build can stop me from really getting into parties lol.

[Vrass]

Maybe a shadow mage / shadow dancer combo?

[Ork]

PvP is RP.

With that said, to finding a good stealthy mage, you will be looking at exclusively wizards since they allow for a lot of extra skill points. Shadow mage gives HiPS and when played well can be effective- however it is a direct downgrade from vanilla wizards since the loss of evocation is a terrible trade.

26 wiz/4 ranger or bard would allow you to invest hide/ms easily.

[Vhah]

PvP is RP.

Not wrong, but my meaning is: There are builds and players both who are more PVP oriented. I'm more of a PVE oriented player. I also lean less towards the best optimized, and go more for flavor with some viability.

[Peppermint]

Wizard is definitely the way to go. The Shadow Mage path is not a must, however. You can still stealth in combat without it provided you cornersneak or exploit darkness/invisibility to break line of sight.

Clerics and Sorcerers can be built for stealth, though it's a little harder. You'll need to be a human with at least 16 intelligence--which isn't optimal.

Warlock could also be an option for you.

[Dr. B]

I would play a warlock. Either pact would do. Though far from optimal, you could go 25/5 Warlock/SD and have quite a fun time.

[Vhah]

I would play a warlock. Either pact would do. Though far from optimal, you could go 25/5 Warlock/SD and have quite a fun time.

Warlock could also be an option for you.

I'm actively looking into a FeyLock as we speak. I'm just trying to figure out how to make Stealth work for me without it being all magic reliant. Such as H/MS and the like. Since I don't ultimately want to just rely on magic if at all possible.

[Dr. B]

Well, you would do that by maxing out ranks in Hide/MS, which the warlock has access to...

[msterswrdsmn]

I've played a stealthy spellcaster before. It was something like 25 wizard/5 rogue. Most of the stealth ranks were cross-class, with an occassional boost via rogue levels.

A vast majority of his combat was PVE, which boiled down to "stealth, dominate the strongest thing you can find, then use a summon and dominated monster while using support spells from stealth". Nonmagical backups included set traps, wands (breach wands, darkness, etc) and just straight up cornersneaking to escape aggro.

Your stealth doesn't need to be absurdly high. It just needs to be high enough to avoid drawing enemy aggro for 2-3 rounds, letting them instead lock onto your unstealthed summons. And since a lot of higher end summons have low DR and mind immunity, things like evards, confusion, hold monster, etc, work for disabling entire mobs, or the more dangerous enemies that can damage your summons.


I haven't played a feylock, so i'm not sure how well this kind of tactic might work. I think they get domination and summon spells, but your fey blast will probably draw aggro of everything around you when used, which is the exact opposite of what I went for with this kind of approach. Not saying its wrong, just that it would have to be managed differently than what I did.

Personal experience, this works great at low to mid-high levels. Epic spawns have absurdly high saves, if not straight up immunities to most crowd control spells, so this gets significantly harder later on without a party

[Mattamue]

Dex spellsword isn't too great because you lose out on a lot of damage compared to str. If you mixed parry in there with hide/ms then you might have something.