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View Full Version : multiclassing my mounted archer/charger into spells.



heymejack
2010-09-02, 08:30 PM
so this is sort of a hypothetical question, but you folk seem to like theorizing, so let's do it:

i have made my halfling on a deinonychus archer/charger. he's good, he's got education, knowledge devotion, ride by and spirited charge, the important ranged feats. he's not perfect he could be a better charger, or a better archer, but it's good times, he's versatile. here's my question: if i was gonna go into epic, i would almost certainly want to do something that gets will. i've been looking into prestige classes that get will and would give me more archery abilities, or more charging abilities, but lets face it folks, the way to make my guy better is to give him some caster levels. but i have ZERO experience with spell casters. I need to know what spell caster I should take. his charisma and intelligence are both 14's, so he'll just be ok, but all i need. no wisdom though. there are so many. duskblade. hexblade. spellsword. wizard. sorcerer. battle sorcerer? the ones that get full base attack would be nice, of course, but if the wizard spells are gonna be my best bet, then that's what i should do. can always switch over to eldrich knight once i get enough levels, anyway.

but i just dont know who gets the best spells. i have some levels of ranger already, but i took the variant that gets feats instead of spells, so they'd be coming from somewhere OTHER than ranger.

so what should I do? who gets the best spells for a mounted, mostly ranged, occasionally charging, halfling hunter/tracker guy?

thank you very much.

Eldariel
2010-09-02, 09:10 PM
If you go Epic, you get Epic BAB and saves and thus BAB and saves grow irrelevant. Best casting would probably be some fast progression PrC; Suel Arcanamach, Ur-Priest, Sublime Chord, Divine Crusader, some such. Mystic Ranger is notable as a nice gishy caster but is Wisdom-based (tho with Sword of the Arcane Order, you get Wizard-spells with Int-base), so something to consider.

Best spells for...? Obviously Wizard's list is the most powerful and versatile overall; that's what the class is all about. It has no BAB, skills, saves or class features; all it gets are its spells so they better be awesome. And they are. Most other lists leech the best bits off the Wizard-list with few gems (notably Cleric has the best buffs and resurrection/healing magic and Druid has few extremely powerful unique environmental effects), but e.g. Ranger's list has many awesome pieces for combat casting (Rhino's Charge, Find the Gap, Hunter's Mercy, Hunter's Eye, Sniper's Shot, Foebane). So it depends on the purpose.


For your character, the best would probably frankly be Mystic Ranger. It gets 5th level spells in 10 levels which then provides you with a platform to pick Improved Spell Capacity 4 times in Epic to reach Epic Spellcasting, and with Sword of the Arcane Order you can cast Wizard-spells from your slots too giving you 9th level spells from the best list in the game, and 5th level Ranger spells. Notably, you'd get all the spells that augment mounted combat, charging & archery. So...see about retraining. Mystic Ranger...you used to be able to find it on Crystalkeep but now you need to dig up Dragon Magazine #336. Note that items can buff your Wis and Int if that's the problem. Something to consider, at any rate. Inherent bonuses go up to +5 so...+5 Int would get you 9th level casting already and +5 Wis would probably get you 5th level spells from Ranger-list.