Poison Master

The Poison Master is a dual-wielding Drow Ninja Spy that leverages shortswords, Dark finishing moves and Ninjutsu to blind, paralyze, stop spell and other attacks. The Poison Master's superior attack is magnifying Poison-type attacks through Ninja Poison.A jack-of-all-dark-trades, this Ninja Spy also stays competent in ranged damage with shuriken. It's high movement speed, even while in stealth, makes the Poison Master a perfect scout.

Ninja Poison is a damage-over-time effect (like the Cleric's Divine Punishment spell). Ninja Poison is a Magical Poison: Immunity from Natural Poisons does not stop it.

• Target takes 1d4 points of Poison damage every 3 seconds for 15 seconds.
• With each stack, the target's vulnerability to poison is increased by 5%. This ability can stack up to 20 times (or 100% Poison vulnerablity)
• On timer expiration, 5 stacks of Ninja Poison are removed at a time.

Ninja Poison works on all enemies, including Red Named enemies. Ninja Poison does not work on enemy races that have true Poison immunity, such as devils, demons, fleshless or incorporeal undead, and non-living constructs.

Ninja Poison's vulnerability effect not only magnifies Poison damage from itself but from any ally's attacks that deliver Poison-type damage, such as the Poison spell, weapons with Poison-type damage, or allies that strike while using the Poison enhancement Venomed Blades. Ninja Poison does not magnify or alter effects from stat-damaging attacks whose names imply a poison attack but aren't deliver actual Poison-type damage, such as the Rogue Assassin's Poison Strikes.

The Poison Master has superior Dodge and Incorporeality miss-chance defenses. The student should seek out a means of generating Blurry (20% Concealment) through an item such as the Bracers of Wind or, ideally, a higher-level Ring of Shadows or Green Steel Helm with the proper ingredients that also create a Displacement option.

Race

The Drow race gains Shuriken Expertise as a granted feat on character creation. They also gain Xen'drik Weapon Training that increases attack and to-hit bonuses with shuriken and shortswords. The Ambidexterity enhancement also improves damage and Dodge bonuses. Central to the Drow selection is Venomed Blades, which delivers up to 1d8 Poison damage on hit. With maximized Poison vulnerability from Ninja Poison, Venomed Blades overall damage greatly improves.

Stats

As a Ninja Spy, the Poison Master gains the core abilities Ninja Training and Advanced Ninja Training to make shuriken and shortswords as Dexterity-to-Damage weapons. The three most important stats are Wisdom, Dexterity and Constitution, with Strength and Intelligence as lower-priority. CHA is not used in this build normally, but some students may leverage this stat for Use Magical Device skills at the cost of points to Hide, Move Silently and other vital skills.

WIS empowers the Difficulty Checks of the dark finishing moves used often in gameplay as well as an AC bonus and available ki. DEX determines attack and to-hit rolls while also giving AC and Reflex save bonuses. CON adds survivability. STR is needed when fighting unarmed for damage and to avoid becoming uncentered from heavy loads or when hit by STR-damaging magic such as Ray of Enfeeblement.

The Poison Master is not designed on Heroic levels for sustained front-line attacks but to quickly cripple and eliminate humanoid or living constructs, or disable or limit attacks of certain other races.

Skills and feats that allow the Poison Master to attack effectively while also fading back into the shadows, leaving enemies searching in vain to find her, are crucial.

The Epic Poison Master, however, with proper destiny training, good ability stats and use of Ninja Spy skils, can be a potent soloing master, even in Epic Elite.

Feats

The Poison Master chooses the Two-Weapon Fighting feat line while also choosing feats to improve their Dodge and defense.

• Two Weapon Fighting decreases off-hand attack penalties of Wounding and Poison weaponry used to quickly debilitate enemies and increases chances for off-hand attacks.
• Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack increase total Dodge and qualify the ninja for Combat Expertise for added AC defenses. Combat Expertise requires INT 13, so some INT training at character creation assists this option while also generating a few extra skill points.
• Optionally, training in some Ranged feats such as Point Blank Shot, Quick Draw and Rapid Shot would increase the student's effectiveness in shuriken attacks, making the build a lesser version of the Shiradi Shuricannon.

While Epic feats such as Blinding Speed and Perfect Two Weapon Fighting can be helpful, one recommended feat for optimizing takedowns when mobs appear is Dire Charge. This charges an enemy and causes the target and surrounding enemies into a stun, making for fast take-downs because of the build's ability to quickly kill Helpless foes, especially with the right Twist.

Ninja Spy Enhancements

The Ninja Spy tree has extensive but expensive training. To activate and maximize all abilities in the tree require 69 Action Points. You'll need to reserve at least 18 AP for the Drow enhancements that provide Venomed Blades, leaving the remaining points free for several variations of Poison Master training.

• High Sneak Attack: This variant maximizes the Sneak Attack enhancements and adds Crippling Strike for STR damage. This will compromise maximizing Ninjutsu/negative energy training.
• High Negative Energy Damage: This variant maximizes Ninjutsu training to add Touch of Death negative energy strike to go with Poison attacks. This may compromise Sneak Attack training.
• Balanced Attack: This variant trains in Ninjutsu and Sneak Attack training but only to tier 2 or 3 on either line. This leaves sufficient AP for stat and special defensive enhancements such as Faster Sneaking, Agility, Acrobatic and stat bonuses but at lower ranks.

Highly recommended enhancements that should be trained in all variants are

• Poisoned Soul (Delivers 5 Ninja Poison stacks, cumulative)
• Wave of Despair (Against Poison-immune enemies or against superior numbers, mass negative-level attack)
• Stealthy (All three ranks, bonuses to Hide/Move Silently and +1 to passive ki regeneration)
• Acrobatic (Dodge bonuses)
• Agility (Dodge bonuses, Dodge cap increases)
• Sting of the Ninja (adds Ninja Poison to thrown and melee weapons)
• No Mercy (up to 30% damage to the helpless)
• Shadow Double (100% stacking Doublestrike for 6 seconds)

Weapons

The Poison Master loves any weapons with Poison-type damage. Poison damage from these weapons are magnified by Ninja Poison's debuff.

One of the most potent shortswords in the game for the young Ninja Spy is the Tiefling Assassin's Blade. With Wounding, Keen, Poison and a wider critical threat range, this level 4 weapon is painful even into upper Heroic levels.

Also handy are Sting and the Envenomed Blade, both which can be upgraded into Epic versions.

Update 29 introduced a new prefix, Venomous. These are the most powerful Poison-type weapons with up to 6d6 Poison damage on hit. A skilled Poison Master will see purple (enhanced vulnerability) damage when using these weapons almost immediately on many enemies. Such weapons with augment slots or if given event damage enhancements (such as Icy Burst) can become stronger "go to" weapons than the high-end named weapons.

A Poison Master will be less effective against poison-immune enemies but is hardly out of the game, thanks to dark finishers such as Freezing the Lifeblood, negative energy attacks and debuffs, and sheer DPS with two-weapon wielding. The right weapons help, as well, so acquiring Thunder-Forged Shortswords and the Elemental Fury shortsword helps here.

Because the Poison Master is a Drow, they gain Shuriken Expertise. This gives them superior damage and speed when throwing shuriken. By level 20, their stars become Vorpal weapons and, with high DEX and Doubleshot, multiple stars per attack are easily achieved.

This makes a Poison Master a "light Shuricannon," missing only a few ranged/thrown feats for an optimized fight. Despite that limitation, a Poison Master can kill just as readily (although not quite as swiftly) with a star as with a sword. Like the Shuricannon, a Celestia or weapon with Seeker or Deception helps augment the star's damage or effects.

Healing

Like most dark Monks, the Poison Master does not have strong battle-healing in Heroic levels. Gameplay should take advantage of others in party initially gaining aggro, where the Poison Master swoops in to kill. With stealth tactics in use, the Poison Master's superior Hide/Move Silently and at-will Invisibility, in addition to paralyzing or silencing dark finishers or the assassinating Quivering Palm, the classical ninja can sneak through guards, leaving them unaware, to kill targets easily.

Most importantly, using Flash Bang or Diversion, the Ninja Spy is able to escape the pursuit of enemies better than any class. The key to weak healing, in the case of the Poison Master, is leaving someone else to bleed out instead.

Epic Destinies

The Poison Master is comfortable enough with the Monk-aligned Grandmaster of Flowers destiny, but weapon and melee-based destinies such as Legendary Dreadnought and Unyielding Sentinel can greatly improve the build's melee damage and protection. The ranged fighting-aligned Shiradi Champion augments the build's "light Shuricannon" mode.

Mixing up destinies for use as Twisted abilities is a very good idea. One example is combining the Fury of the Wild's Sense Weakness to the Ninja Spy's No Mercy enhancement. Each of these cause 30% damage to helpless enemies and the effects stack. The takedown speed of a Poison Master against the helpless, especially with all Sneak Attack bonuses of the enhancement tree and the accumulating effect of Poison damage is a marvel to see.

The Build

Here is the text of the build as compiled through Character Builder Lite 2.0.1. Simply copy into a text file and import into the program to tailor the build to your liking.

Poison Master

Monk 20

Lawful Good Drow

Stats

28pt 30pt 32pt Tome Level Up

---- ---- ---- ---- --------

Strength 12 12 12 4: DEX

Dexterity 16 17 18 +5 8: DEX

Constitution 12 12 12 12: DEX

Intelligence 12 12 12 +1 16: DEX

Wisdom 16 16 16 +5 20: WIS

Charisma 10 10 10 24: WIS

28: WIS

Skills

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

------------------------------------------------------------

Concent 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 23

Jump 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 23

Hide 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 23

Move Si 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 23

Tumble 4 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 23

------------------------------------------------------------

20 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

Feats

1 : Dodge

1 Monk : Two Weapon Fighting

2 Monk : Deflect Arrows

3 : Combat Expertise

3 Monk : Path of Inevitable Dominion

6 : Mobility

6 Monk : Ten Thousand Stars

9 : Spring Attack

12 : Improved Critical: Piercing

15 : Improved Two Weapon Fighting

18 : Whirlwind Attack

21 Epic : Overwhelming Critical

24 Epic : Improved Martial Arts

26 Destiny: Perfect Two Weapon Fighting

27 Epic : Blinding Speed

28 Destiny: First Blood

29 Destiny: Dire Charge

30 Epic : Great Ability: Wisdom

30 Legend : Scion of: Astral Plane

Enhancements (80 AP)

Ninja Spy (60 AP)

• Basic Ninja Training, Advanced Ninja Training, Shadow Veil, Poisoned Darts, Diversion, Ninja Master

1. Ninjutsu: Poisoned Soul, Stealthy III, Sneak Attack Training, Faster Sneaking III, Acrobatic III

2. Ninjutsu: Wave of Despair, Sneak Attack Training, Unbalancing Strike, Agility III

3. Ninjutsu: Poison Exploit, Flash Bang III, Sneak Attack Training, Sting of the Ninja, Wisdom

4. Ninjutsu: Impending Doom, Sneak Attack Training, No Mercy III, Wisdom

5. Touch of Death, Crippling Strike, Shadow Double

Drow (20 AP)

• Spell Resistance

1. Vermin Lore I, Keen Senses I, Xen'drik Weapon Training

2. Venom Lore III, Xen'drik Weapon Training

3. Improved Dodge III, Xen'drik Weapon Training

4. Venomed Blades III, Xen'drik Weapon Training

Destiny (24 AP)

Grandmaster of Flowers

1. Lily Petal, Perfect Balance II, Enlightenment III, Dance of Flowers III, Dexterity

2. Serenity III, Hail of Blows

3. Orchid Blossom

4. Standing with Stone III, Piercing Clarity II

5. Drifting Lotus

6. Everything is Nothing

Twists of Fate (15 fate points)

1. Sense Weakness (Tier 4 Fury)

2. Rejuvenation Cocoon (Tier 1 Primal)

3. Brace for Impact (Tier 1 Sentinel)