Assassins in Neverwinter Nights are much maligned. Many consider the prestige class weak, ineffective or just superfluous. After all, rogues get backstabs; invisibility and ghostly visage can be cast by arcanists or from scrolls; and the assassinating death attack never manages to paralyse. Or so it would seem. This view of assassin's apparent weakness is compounded by the lack of good builds that use the assassin class. To rectify that, I have created an effective assassin build that I've christened the Shadow Blade.

The Shadow Blade has an unbelievably high AC (If you see the screenshot of my level 27 HotU character, it is 56! (she soloed HotU, hardcore difficulty, of course)) and is thus impossible to hit. Even if the blow supposedly lands, the first does no damage, thanks to Epic Dodge. Even otherwise, 50% of all blows miss anyway, thanks to Self Concealment V. Add in Improved Evasion that makes 50% of all reflex spells miss (or take half damage), we've got ourselves an almost untouchable assassin. Top it up with a 20d6 sneak attack, causing a death attack with a Fortitude save from paralysation of 38, he is, in a word, Murder.

Fading in and out of battle, assassinating the weakest links one by one, while enemy weapons skim air at the place where you appeared and vanished from, the Shadow Blade strikes silent, strikes deep.

The trick to the assassin class is not to have it as a minor class, but as your primary class. You need to do go all the way with an assassin. I sent my SoU Shadow Blade character to one of my friends, and he went through HotU with her. His verdict? "Fun".

So, without further ado, I present The Shadow Blade.

If there's any class that's got worse press than assassins, it's got to be the Harper Scout. Add in tough to meet requirements that asks for feats that no one usually picks; only a few levels of the prestige class in question with no chance of it going epic; stir well; and you got a recipe for disaster.

Can anything redeem this class? Yes and No. If you're looking for an epic powerhouse, then it's best you overlook this class. However, if you're looking for a decent build for the first twenty levels, with usefulness, this is it. This character is just perfect for SoU, and if solo'ed (as I had done), you'd get disease and fear immunity at exactly the time you face monsters that cause fear and disease.

Looking at it, it is definitely a different build. A dexterity based, parrying, dual rapier wielder who is primarily a Fighter with a few token Paladin levels and secondly, a Harper Scout, this might have you scratching your head, going "Eh?". But fear not, this is a very effective and useful build.

Fighter? Fighter gives you a decent hit dice and health for the early levels of your character. But the main bonus is that the fighter extra feats are exactly what she needs for getting Harper Scout levels as soon as possible. Paladin? Apart from being Immune to fear and disease, the two paladin levels allow you to spend your unspent skill points into Persuade, which is a prerequisite for Harpers. Harper?Getting Harper levels gives you access to the Tumble skill, into which you can sink your unspent skill points to increase your AC. Secondly, being a Harper allows you to cast Cat's Grace and Eagle Splendour, which gives you better AC and chance to hit, and if you get a high dice for Eagle Splendour, buff your saves as well! Llira's Grace buffs your saves further. Rapiers? SoU has an amazing pair of Rapiers, Rapiers of the High Road, +1 1d6 Acid Damage Keen. As you can see in the screenshot, I have a 45% chance to critical. Ouch! Parry? Don't think it's bad. Try to fight a boss with parry on, and you'll understand why I've taken that skill in the fighter levels.

In closing, high saves, decent AC, very high critical damage chances, good attack base. The only weakness being that this would be an average epic character.

So, here's a screenshot of my character, just after she finished SoU (solo, hardcore difficulty, of course).