Drow Fury M(11),F(12),IB(5),Pal(2)

Monk 11/Fighter 12/Invisible Blade 5/Blackguard 2 Alignment: Lawful Evil Attributes: STR 8 DEX 18 ->25 CON 12 INT 18 WIS 14 CHA 10 Character trait: natural leader (companions get +1 attack, player -1 saves) Dual Kama wielding

Advantages of Drow: Better attribute bonuses Spell resistance 41 at level 30: nearly immune to most spells ECL penalty of -2, but will achieve level 30 before end of MotB

Notes: No experience penalty by alternating fighter/monk levels for drow, so that both standard class levels are within 1 of each other. Perfect Two-weapon Fighting is not achieved until level 29. You can get this earlier by taking a “greater dexterity” feat or by modifying the build slighty – for example, starting with a DEX of 19 and WIS of 11.

For good players, paladin can be substituted for blackguard the last 2 levels. However, paladin builds would have an experience penalty, although not until level 29 going on thirty, so this disadvantage may not be so serious. Other options (instead of blackguard) include one level of assassin (for paralyzing death attack) or shadowdancer (for hide in plain sight). Those builds lose 1 BAB, but still have 6 base attacks/round.

The first IB level is taken at 20, so that fighter 10 can be taken as an epic level. This allows selection of an additional epic feat as opposed to the less-powerful pre-epic feats.

This can be tweaked further by taking more Invisible Blade and Blackguard levels before level 20. This would push additional fighter feats into the epic range, allowing a variety of options – picking up epic DEX for an earlier PTWS, armorskin for yet another point of AC, etc.

The potential advantages over the vanilla build include: 1. Pick up another +2 for damage (INT 18 instead of 14) 2. Pick up an additional +2 AC (from WIS) 3. Tapping into the power of yet another attribute – Charisma – to buff saves 4. Awesome spell resistance (in addition to high AC makes this character highly versatile)

The big disadvantage however is the -2 ECL for drow, as well as the -2 drow penalty to attack rolls in daylight (fortunately most of MotB is not in daylight). Of course one can pick another race and forget about the spell resistance and the attribute buffs, but still get the CHA bonus to saves.

Character Progression Table
(Skill abbreviations: B = Bluff, D = Diplomacy, I = Intimidate, S = Spot, T = Tumble)
 * = not crucial to build, may be modified