[3.5] Gish knight

[Bloodymango]

Hello there I’m currently in a campaign right now, but we will be starting a new one soon and i was looking for some advice on my next character.
Race: helbread -2int +2con (Dm’s exception) only phb races allowed
Class: knight
AB’s
16 str
10dex
14con
6 int
8 wis
16 cha
I was thinking I would make him a gish, after 4th level in knight. Then I will go sorcerer and spellsword. I’m not sure if I want to go the full progression for spell sword. I was looking at blood magus. They seem to be an up close and personal type of caster. Any way I was looking for some help on feats, or if you know any other good combinations for a gish with knight and sorcerer combo. Plz no tome of battle. All other books to my knowledge are open. Feel free to post your questions

[Duncan_Ruadrik]

Did you consider Eldritch Knight in the DMG? or Knight Phantom? (from Eberron)

both of these prestige classes advance martial abilities and spellcasting. see if you can use the Eldritch Knight from Pathfinder. (d10 HD, and some bonus feats)

[Coidzor]

I was thinking I would make him a gish, after 4th level in knight. Then I will go sorcerer and spellsword. I’m not sure if I want to go the full progression for spell sword. I was looking at blood magus. They seem to be an up close and personal type of caster. Any way I was looking for some help on feats, or if you know any other good combinations for a gish with knight and sorcerer combo. Plz no tome of battle. All other books to my knowledge are open. Feel free to post your questions

Spellsword isn't really that good of a class, especially not after maybe 3rd level. After the first level of Spellsword, 1st level of Eldritch Knight is better for your lost CL value than taking 2+ levels of spellsword.

You should take Abjurant Champion though, from Complete Mage. Good stuff that.

Sacred Exorcist(Complete Divine) is a full-casting PrC that gives you turn undead as well, which can be nice with a Cha-based caster, as well as giving 3/4 BAB and being 10 levels long for use as full-casting filler to maximize the amount of casting in exchange for a lowered BAB.

A dip of something like Silver Flame Pyromancer from Five Nations(an Eberron book) would be good for the castery portion of things due to adding Paladin spells to your list that you can use a wand or scroll for or learn as a sorcerer, which might be of interest as part of your gishy-knight hellbred chassis.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Well, you are already crippling yourself, as far as being a Gish, by going 4 levels in Knight. This will retard your spells known and spells per day to the point where they are not effective for you.

The most traditional Gish is Paladin2/Sorc4/SpellSword1/AbChamp5/Sacred Exorcist8. This nets you 9th level spells, and a +16 BAB at level 20.

If you're wanting to use your spells defensively, without much in the way of trying to be an actual caster, you may wish to consider, INSTEAD of Sorcerer, trying Suel Arcanamach, backed up with a dip into Spellsword and then into Abjurant Champion.

So, you'd be looking at Knight6/Suel4/Spellsword1/Abjurant Champion5/Legacy Champion 4

Here's why:

Suel Arcanamach has it's own spellcasting progression and spell table. It's pretty handy for mixing it up, lot of buffs and stuff, so it's probably a good fit for what you are wanting.

You also net some interesting abilities from it:

* Tenacious Spellcasting: Increases DC to dispel your spells by 6. Combined with an ability from Abjurant Champion below, it makes your spells fiendishly hard to dispel.

* Dispelling Strike: Because the best way to tell an opponent caster to piss off is to strip his buffs. It is basically access to Greater Dispel Magic at level 8. This is made of win.

* Extended Spellstrength. Basically, double the duration of any self-buffs. Handy.

Which synergizes well with Abjurant Champion which lets you do the following:

* Abjurant Armor: this means your Shield spell will end up giving you a +9 Shield bonus to AC... +12 with Legacy Champion cranked in.

* Extended Abjuration. Double the duration of any Abjuration spell. Handy, but probably doesn't stack with Extended Spellstrength. However, since a lot of the buffs you are wanting are Transmutation anyways, this wouldn't apply in the first place. And this DOES let you buff your allies with Abjuration spells at double duration, which Extended Spellstrength doesn't.

* Swift Abjuration. Auto-quicken up to 3rd level Abjuration spells. With Legacy Champion, you just barely get to auto-quicken up to 5th level spells, which is the highest level spell you can cast. Exceedingly handy.

* Arcane Boost. Almost worthless, actually, since it burns your Swift action you'd be using for an automatically quickened Abjuration spell.

* Martial Arcanist. This is, quite possibly, the most broken thing you get. You see... your effective Caster Level is now equal to your BASE ATTACK BONUS. Since you have a full BAB, your effective caster level is equal to your character level. Also, remember above how dispel checks are increased by 6? Yea, that means that your effective caster level + 6 is their target number. That means they probably are NOT going to be dispelling any of your buffs any time soon.

Oh, and you also get a -20% reduction to Arcane Spell Failure from Suel and Spellsword. So Twilight Mithral Full Plate is definitely an option for you.

Does that sound about like what you'd like to do?

[herrhauptmann]

Always a fan of the swiftblade (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070327) personally.
But if you want swiftblade, it's got some harsh prereqs. Dodge and Mobility. And the level prior to entry, you can only cast haste in that particular spell slot (so only 3rd level spell your sorc can use is haste). It's also 6/10 casting, which hurts less than it might otherwise, because you're already giving up a lot of caster levels with those 4 levels of knight.

If you don't want that, I'd suggest following Shneekys advice.

Regarding spells, (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=130085&page=2)
1st Level Spells:
Grease (PHB)
Mage Armor (PHB)
Nerverskitter (SC)
Shield (PHB)
fist of stone (CArc)

2nd Level Spells:
Mirror Image (PHB)
Wraithstrike (SC)

3rd Level Spells:
Haste (PHB)
Dispel Magic (PHB)

4th Level Spells:

Dimension Door (PHB)
Polymorph (PHB)

5th Level Spells:
Acid Sheath (SC)
Baleful Polymorph(PHB)
Teleport (PHB)

6th Level Spells:
Disintegrate (PHB)
Contingency (PHB)
Greater Dispel Magic (SC)

7th Level Spells:
Energy Absorption (SC)
Force Cage (PHB)
Limited Wish (PHB)
Prismatic Spray (PHB)
Reverse Gravity (PHB)


8th Level Spells:
Mind Blank (PHB)
Polymorph Any Object (PHB)

9th Level Spells:
Time Stop (PHB)
Gate (PHB)
Shapechange (PHB)
Wish (PHB)

[dextercorvia]

* Martial Arcanist. This is, quite possibly, the most broken thing you get. You see... your effective Caster Level is now equal to your BASE ATTACK BONUS. Since you have a full BAB, your effective caster level is equal to your character level. Also, remember above how dispel checks are increased by 6? Yea, that means that your effective caster level + 6 is their target number. That means they probably are NOT going to be dispelling any of your buffs any time soon.



Suel is 7/10 BAB, so he would lose at least one point /nitpick

Still this is an awesome option.

[Keld Denar]

Slight variation on Shneekey's SA build:

Knight4/Duskblade2/Suel4/Spellsword1/AbjChamp5/X4

This gets you Combat Casting, a prereq for both Suel and AbjChamp for free as a bonus feat, plus with Versatile Spellcaster, gives you a bunch of extra 1st level spells you can convert to 2nd level spell slots. There are a LOT of good 2nd level Suel spells. Wraith Strike, Whirling Blade, and Bladeweave are 3 of my favorites. It also gets you the Knowledge/caster skills you need for Suel, which are otherwise a pain to get as a straight Knight.

Shneekey also suggested Legacy Champion as a finisher for the build. This is great, as it gets you another 3 points of AC on your Shield spell and the ability to quicken up to 4th level abjuration spells. If you don't have access to Weapon of Legacy, though, Dragon Disciple actually makes a great conclusion to Suel Arcanamach. You get 4 points of Str, 2 Con, 2 Cha, all stats you need. You also get 2 bonus spell slots, IIRC, which is like, the only way to actually progress Suel casting past 10/10. 2 extra 5th level slots is better than nothing! Its like, one of the few places where DD is actually a good fit, so...yea.

[Bloodymango]

ok thanks guys, made a mistake i meant to say 3 levels in knight. there a r a few problems with some of these builds first off i'm not going to be playing a human so i can not be sual. and second we are gonna be trying to play with LGCS. so abjurent champion is out, for now. my last campaign that i played in abjurent champion was allowed, but that was a different dm, and he had to buff a very poorly made character. as for builds now that i'm thinking (knight3/sourcerer4/spellblade4/eldrich knight 9)
or (knight4/sorc4/spellblade1/eldrich knight10 +1 some where )
if abj champ is allowed
((knight3/sourcerer4/spellblade4/eldrich knight 4/ abj champ 5))

any ways how about some feats that will help me maximize my dmg/ survival

[Keld Denar]

Minor Shapeshift if the best way for a gish to increase survivability. Its a reserve feat in CMage. Unfortuantely, with your lost caster levels, you won't qualify for it until like, level 15, by which point, its really a low boon. Also, with the LGCS rules, you can't actually learn Polymorph, so you'd have to have something like Trollshape as your only 4th level spell known at level 15, which is kinda a downer.

Ther other good defence for a gish is Greater Mirror Image from Complete Mage. Again, though, its a 4th level spell, and you don't have any of them until 15th level, at which point you'd have to take Trollshape if you wanted Minor Shapeshift...so you run into issues there.

Otherwise, you'll be running into huge action economy issues. If you spend the first 3 rounds of combat casting Shield + Mirror Image + False Life, or something, combat will be nearly over, for better or worse, by the time you get in and start mixing it up. Otherwise, you'll be too vulnerable without your buffs given that you won't really be able to wear armor, especially at the lowish levels.

Have you considered just playing a Duskblade with a code of honor? You could even boost your Cha and take the Goad feat (RoStone/CAdv), if you wanted. Might be better in the long run.

[cfalcon]

The most traditional Gish is Paladin2/Sorc4/SpellSword1/AbChamp5/Sacred Exorcist

"Traditional". I do not think this word means what you think it means :P

[Coidzor]

"Traditional". I do not think this word means what you think it means :P

Orthodox then, at least for CHA-based gishing.

Edit: I must admit though, I'm a bit surprised this is the first time I've run into Legacy Champion + Abjurant Champion.

[Bloodymango]

i liked the duskblade idea, to bad its int based

[TroubleBrewing]

Cleric.

What? Somebody needed to say it.

[herrhauptmann]

LGCS? Living greyhawk campaign setting?

Suel Arcanamach (at least the one I'm looking at in CArc) doesn't require that you be a human:
Bab 6, Concentration 4, Tumble 4, Jump 4, Spellcraft 5.
Combat casting and iron will (pay for the otyugh hole)
Speak Ancient Suloise.
Be proficient in 4 martial and/or exotic weapons.
Read the grimoire or take instruction from another Arcanamach.

[Coidzor]

Cleric.

What? Somebody needed to say it.

Take the Dynamic Priest Feat with the first level of it and it might just even work. But since this is LGCS for whatever reason, that's sadly verboten.

[Bloodymango]

saul is a sub race of human

[FMArthur]

The Suel Arcanamach is a prestige class in Complete Arcane. It gets a small amount of casting from abjuration, divination, illusion, and transmutation up to 5th level spells (which is 8 levels after you qualified with +6 BAB and two weak feats), medium BAB and some more or less negligable class features. A few people here are in love with it for some reason.

It's notable for being one of several "gish-in-a-can" classes - spellcasting melee classes who don't require any further multiclassing to get going. But a number of classes also do that, do it at a lower level, and are just better. Simply being a straight-classed Battle Sorceror is one easy example. Neither is nearly as good as a carefully multiclassed build, but some people are uncomfortable with the number of classes it takes to make one work better than simple gishes. Cleric is just plain easy - with domains and prestige classes you can just build it to do the same things one expects out of arcane casters.

[Cog]

saul is a sub race of human
The class represents people who study the ways of the Suel, not people who are Suel. The Suel are a nationality/ethnicity, not a subrace, IIRC.

[Keld Denar]

They are an ethnicity, but one that is purely human. The whole schtick of the Seulouise is very similar to that of various white supremacists of present day. Fair skin is glorified, as is blond hair, with platinum blond being considered to "purist". Very racially motivated. Seulouise organizations like the Scarlet Brotherhood subjegate "lesser" races, like other human ethnicities and the various demihumans (assuming we can still use this term :smallcool:) and use them for slave labor and/or magical experiments.

The main human ethnicities in Greyhawk are Suel, Flan, Oeridian, and Baklunish, with a few other smaller ethnicities like the Touv. That said, they are all mechanically identical.

Even with that said, though, Suel Arcanamach doesn't have the Race: Human tag, unlike Arcane Archer which says Race: Elf. You just have to find the Grimoire Arcanamacha and study it.

Even more upon that, its not a hard PrC to adapt. I once played a Goliath Suel Arcanamach who was raised by dwarves, but instead of the Grimoire Arcanamach, he found an ancient Dethek tome that layed out the path of an ancient dwarven sect of spellbreakers who wielded a small amount of magic to better hunt and slay rogue magic users. Swapped Language: Ancient Seulouise for Dethek (ancient Dwarven) was the only change made. Fits 100% with the mechanics of the class.