Filling out a sublime chord's spell list

[Steamsaint]

Ok, I have here a newborn Bard10/Sublime Chord10 who needs a spell list.

I want him to be a capable gish while at the same time he's our party's main arcane caster so he needs to be capable of some basic utility, although I'd prefer to keep away from the save and dies etc. since our party consists of a necromancer cleric/master of shrouds, a rogue/shadowdancer and a crit fighter, so I don't want to overshadow them.

So basically what's available is: no homebrew material. SRD, Completes, PHB2, MIC, SC are fully available. MIC and SC descriptions supersede older items/spells. Ask for everything that is not there.

And these are the number of spells known for each level:

Bard:
0th: 4+gnome racials (gnome substitution level)
1st: 4
2nd: 4
3rd: 4
4th: 2

Sublime Chord:
4th: 4
5th: 4
6th: 4
7th: 4
8th: 3
9th: 2

I've been looking at the Bite of the X spells, and decided to take Bite of the Weretiger over Bite of the Werebear because I'd like to still be able to cast spells and it frees up some of the precious 9th level spells.

I'd also like to take for example Greater Teleport and find some sort of method of overcoming my 10ft speed (I took the slow flaw as a gnome, go figure)

Thanks for any help :)
[/LIST]

[Thrice Dead Cat]

I'd honestly take a look at Treantmonk20's Guide to X School of Spells: God's Tools (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19869058/Treantmonks_guide_to_Conjuration:_Gods_tools), the very best of the best of each school's worth of spells!:smallsmile:

[CapnVan]

I'd also like to take for example Greater Teleport and find some sort of method of overcoming my 10ft speed (I took the slow flaw as a gnome, go figure)

Overland Flight?

It does take up a precious slot, but it does have the benefit of rendering your move rate moot. Plus, you know, flying.

[CapnVan]

A few thoughts to consider that pop immediately to mind:

Bard 1: Silent Image (reliably useful), Expeditious Retreat (personal fallback), Grease (BC)...
Bard 2: Alter Self, Glitterdust (both musts)...
Bard 3: Dispel Magic, Glibness (both musts), Phantom Steed also overcomes that pesky move rate, and lets you fly at your caster level...
Bard 4: Dimension Door (who needs a move rate?), Greater Invisibility...

Once you have access to the wizard list, you can't go wrong taking a look at Treantmonk's guides, as mentioned by Thrice Dead Cat.

[CapnVan]

Ok, I have here a newborn Bard10/Sublime Chord10 who needs a spell list.

And finally, I feel certain you'll also hear this:
Bard 8/Virtuoso 2/SC 2/Virtuoso 8 is the preferred build.

[Mordokai]

Inspirational Boost from SC is a good choice for your level one spell slot, if you ask me.

Also, CapnVan, ever heard of Edit button?

[Draz74]

You know what's an even better Bard 1 spell than Inspirational Boost? Improvisation, also from SpC.


Overland Flight?

It does take up a precious slot, but it does have the benefit of rendering your move rate moot. Plus, you know, flying.

The problem with Overland Flight, for a spontaneous caster, is that you'll only ever use it once per day (barring if you get Dispelled). Yuck. Bard spells should all be spells that you can get more frequent use out of.

Fly has the opposite problem -- it has a short duration, it can be used on your teammates, and it is useful ridiculously often, so it will eat up all your spell slots.

Phantom Steed is the great compromise. Gives you insanely good speed, enough that (with maxxed Concentration) you can generally stay safe in battles (in open terrain) just by riding far away from the monsters in between your spells. (This is important, since the steed himself is fragile.) Eventually gives you flight. Lasts all day long. And can be used on your party members whenever convenient.

I recommend Phantom Steed to Sorcerers all the time. Let alone gnomes with the Slow flaw!

[Grim Reader]

I am a fan of dipping a level of Sand Shaper before Sublimating. Costs very little and adds a buttload of spells. War Weaver is good too. Although that is Sandstorm and Heroes of Battle, I think, so may be hard to get accepted.

[Jack_Simth]

Phantom Steed is the great compromise. Gives you insanely good speed, enough that (with maxxed Concentration) you can generally stay safe in battles (in open terrain) just by riding far away from the monsters in between your spells. (This is important, since the steed himself is fragile.) Eventually gives you flight. Lasts all day long. And can be used on your party members whenever convenient.Replace with Shadow Conjouration. One spell level higher, but also does a number of other useful things. If you voluntarily give up the save you don't need to make in the first place, it has full effect on you, so you're good. Actually, the entire Core Shadow line of spells is quite useful for anyone with a sharply limited spell list, really. Shadow Walk covers both Plane Shift and Teleport (mostly), although you'll need to pair it with Darkness. Greater Shadow Evocation does Contingency, some walls (Wall of Force, Wall of Ice, Wall of Fire), and blasting if needed. And so on.

You might see about replacing some of those Sublime Chord levels with Abjurant Champion levels, if you're planning for a Gish - full BAB, better hit die, full casting progression.

[El Dorado]

Spell list from my bard 9/sublime chord 1/virtuoso 3:

0---dancing lights, ghost sound, lullaby, mending, message, prestidigitation
1st---disguise self, inspirational boost, grease, silent image
2nd---bladeweave, detect thoughts, glitterdust, invisibility
3rd---charm monster, displacement, haste
4th---break enchantment, cure critical wounds, freedom of movement, solid fog
5th---greater dispel magic; teleport
6th---true seeing

[Steamsaint]

Spell list from my bard 9/sublime chord 1/virtuoso 3

How did you get into Sublime Chord before level 10? It requires 13 ranks in knowledge (arcana) and listen.

Anyway, this is the only way I can go to get 9th level spells because my DM's rule is that if you start a PRC, you finish it before entering a new one (although you can go back to a base class and use as many of them as you want)

With Fly, Dimension Door, Phantom Steed etc. I can't actually access Fly (it's a third level sorc/wiz spell and I only have access to 4th level and above as an SC), Dimension Door uses up too many spell casts because despite being an excellent spell, I actually have fairly terrible spells/day as a spontaneous caster:

Bard:
0th: 3
1st: 4
2nd: 4
3rd: 3
4th: 1

SC:
4th: 5
5th: 4
6th: 4
7th: 3
8th: 3
9th: 2

Meanwhile, Phantom Steed is blatantly overpowered especially with this team, for this reason, I've gone with Dimension Jumper, which gives me a teleport 30' as a move action for 1 round/level, which should be plenty to last a combat.

Note: These don't actually include my cha bonus to number of spells because I haven't yet bought all the cha items/tomes etc but still...

EDIT: I'm also considering Mass Fly, since that wouldn't need me to spend a huge number of spells to get everyone flying.

[ffone]

That's too bad and annoying about your DM's houserule, since the virtuoso / sublime chord switcheroo is one of the 'uncommon' cases (with most builds that involve 10 levels of a PrC, you take them all consecutively anyway).

[CapnVan]

Also, CapnVan, ever heard of Edit button?

I have! But I when I'm posting three separate thoughts, I tend to go with three separate posts, particularly when I suspect they'll be commented on.
:smallsmile:

[Jack_Simth]

That's too bad and annoying about your DM's houseruleIt's ... actually reasonably sensible, from my perspective. Diptastic builds do tend to cause problems.

[CapnVan]

You know what's an even better Bard 1 spell than Inspirational Boost? Improvisation, also from SpC.

Excellent point. Combined with glibness, that's a +40 bonus to bluff before any other modifiers — why fight when you can convince the BBEG that you're best buds from way back?


The problem with Overland Flight, for a spontaneous caster, is that you'll only ever use it once per day (barring if you get Dispelled). Yuck. Bard spells should all be spells that you can get more frequent use out of...

I tend to concur — but in this specific case, where OP wants to be an effective gish and is crippled by a ridiculous move rate, I would suggest it may be a reasonable tradeoff. And, of course, your suggestion below does suffer from the same issue.


Phantom Steed is the great compromise. Gives you insanely good speed, enough that (with maxxed Concentration) you can generally stay safe in battles (in open terrain) just by riding far away from the monsters in between your spells. (This is important, since the steed himself is fragile.) Eventually gives you flight. Lasts all day long. And can be used on your party members whenever convenient.

I recommend Phantom Steed to Sorcerers all the time. Let alone gnomes with the Slow flaw!

Phantom Steed is awesome, arguably better than Overland Flight in many respects. But again, in this specific case, I have two concerns. First, it ties a Small PC to a Large creature, which, depending on OP's tactics, may present a problem. Second, since OP wants to be a gish, the steed is going to get hit — meaning it's going to go bye-bye pretty quickly in combat, and without even forcing a dispel from the enemy. (YMMV, and obviously, that does depend on particular tactics.)

[Steamsaint]

OK, current spell list:

0:
Dancing Lights
Ghost Sound
Prestidigitation
Detect Magic
Message
-
-

1:
Silent Image
Expeditious Retreat
Grease
Improvisation

2:
Alter Self
Glitterdust
Eagle's Splendor
-

3:
Glibness
Haste
-
-

4b:
Shadow Conjuration
Sirine's Grace

4sc:
Ruin Delver's Fortune
-
-
-

5:
Xorn's Movement
Greater Heroism
Dimension Jumper
-

6:
Otto's Irresistible Dance
-
-
-

7:
Bite of the Werebear
Greater Teleport
-
-

8:
-
-
-

9:
-
-


(- denotes a known spell that I haven't decided on yet)

I'm trying to find higher level spells which aren't gamebreaking, e.g. timestop and shapechange are off the list.

[Coidzor]

It's ... actually reasonably sensible, from my perspective. Diptastic builds do tend to cause problems.

You really get problems from gishes?

[Greenish]

It's ... actually reasonably sensible, from my perspective. Diptastic builds do tend to cause problems.That doesn't prevent dipping, only PrC dipping (which, as pointed out, is a long-standing gish favourite, less used in other types of builds).

What problems do diptastic builds tend to cause?

[Optimator]

I regularly play a level 16 Sublime Chord generalist and a Warblade 3 Bard 10 Warchanter 1 Gish. Here are the spells I highly endorse (with gish-ness in mind and excluding ones you've listed):

Empyreal Ecstasy, Snowsong, Greater Mirror Image, Whirling Blade, Limited Wish, Inspirational Boost, Ironguard, Time Stop, Greater Blink, Elemental Body, Allegro, Dolorous Blow, Bladeweave.

One thing that's neat is many of the level 6 Bard spells published in later books are actually balanced for level 16+ and Sublime CHords get level 6 spells early. Getting Hindsight early is pretty sweet. Getting spells in general two levels late... not so much. Small price to pay to be a totally awesome Sublime Chord though. Not that any of that matters since you're already high level.

Another neat trick which you may not have the feat for is combining Arcane Mastery with Song of Arcane Power (and any other CL boosters like the Orange Ioun Stone and Ring of Arcane Might) and Greater Dispel/Chain Dispel/Reaving Dispel/any other dispel.

[Jack_Simth]

You really get problems from gishes?Gishes specifically? Not really, no. But most of the time, when someone's looking at BaseClassA-2/BaseClassB-3/PrcA-2/PrcB-3/PrcC-5/PrcD-1/et cetera, they're doing it because the assorted base and prestiege classes have some stuff they want early on, but later levels either aren't giving them anything new, or have costs associated with them that they don't want to pay - AKA, they're optimizing.

So maybe it's more optimizers that cause problems than the diptastic builds themselves....

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Gishes specifically? Not really, no. But most of the time, when someone's looking at BaseClassA-2/BaseClassB-3/PrcA-2/PrcB-3/PrcC-5/PrcD-1/et cetera, they're doing it because the assorted base and prestiege classes have some stuff they want early on, but later levels either aren't giving them anything new, or have costs associated with them that they don't want to pay - AKA, they're optimizing.

So maybe it's more optimizers that cause problems than the diptastic builds themselves....

And this is a problem why? One of my favorite builds is Wizard 3/War Weaver 5/Spellguard of Silverymoon 5/Abjurant Champion 5/Filler 2. This asinine houserule does nothing to stop it. Is it REALULTIMATEPOWER?! Probably not, but it has nearly full casting, meaning it could, but at least this build is kind enough to share it with the entire party.:smalltongue: Would I prefer to not finish Spellguard of Silverymoon, however? Yeah, probably. I only really want it for the first 4 of the five levels, but that's just me.

Just because the class line on the character sheet looks like a word salad doesn't mean the character him or herself is bonkers, too! Classes are a metagame construct, after all.

[Greenish]

Gishes specifically? Not really, no. But most of the time, when someone's looking at BaseClassA-2/BaseClassB-3/PrcA-2/PrcB-3/PrcC-5/PrcD-1/et cetera, they're doing it because the assorted base and prestiege classes have some stuff they want early on, but later levels either aren't giving them anything new, or have costs associated with them that they don't want to pay - AKA, they're optimizing.…Yeah, that's why you'd usually jump between the classes. I fail to see the problem in not forcing people to take levels that give them nothing just because they'd rather do X than Y, but the class that does X doesn't do much else, while the class that does Y also gets shiny new toys most every level.

[CapnVan]

2:
Alter Self
Glitterdust
Eagle's Splendor
- {Mirror Image} —*a classic gish spell

3:
Glibness
Haste
- {Cure Serious Wounds} — many will disagree with me, but it makes you an emergency healer, IMO
- {Dispel Magic} — a requirement, to me.

[CapnVan]

4sc:
Ruin Delver's Fortune
- {Greater Mirror Image} if you skip it above, this is even better.
- {Black Tentacles} that is battlefield control
- {Polymorph} if it's allowed... well...

5:
Xorn's Movement
Greater Heroism
Dimension Jumper
- {Teleport?}