Battle Sorceror Proficiencies

[Marnath]

Just a quick question, folks. The battle sorceror gains proficiency with a light or one handed martial weapon: it wouldn't hurt anything to expand that to any one martial weapon right? What would be a good feat or two to make the character reliably able to contribute at least some damage with it? Power attack seems like an obvious choice for melee, what about a bow?

No, I don't want to hear about how bad battle sorceror is, just assume for this thought exercise that the Char-OP level of the rest of the party is low, like fighters and blaster mages actually pull their weight.:smallsmile:

*edit: wrong forum. Please move it for me.:smallsmile:

[peacenlove]

Polymorph lets you keep your medium B.A.B. and the HP granted by your d8 HD. I hear that outsiders make good polymorph candidates if you are one of them beforehand, although i prefer 8-12 headed hydras.
Smiting spell from Player's Handbook 2 is a +1 metamagic feat that lets you put a touch spell on your weapon ala spell storing.
Knowstones (Dragon magazine)/Bloodlines (again Dragon magazine)/Drake helms (some eberron book)/Runestaves (Magic Item Compendium) (sorry I am AFB ATM) will keep your spells known to an adequate number.
Arcane Strike (?) is a feat from complete warrior that converts spell slots into +hit/+damage. Get a ring of wizardry I before blowing your few low level slots though.

On weapon. Bows are horrible weapon choices since they are feat intensive and the sorcerer is feat starved, let alone if he pursues a warrior/mage path.
I couldn't see why 2 handers shouldn't be allowed, since a sorcerer's strength wouldn't be that great anyway, but if your DM disagrees, check the stalwart sorcerer subtitution level in complete mage. It gives weapon focus with any martial weapon and a buttload of HP's should you pursue single class sorcerer and don't mind the spell known loss.

[Greenish]

Drake helms (some eberron book)Explorer's Handbook.

On topic, you can use one-handed weapons two-handed. The base damage is slightly lower, but that's not a great hurdle for a gish.

[Leon]

Bows are more useful i have found for pure sorcerer as they tend to want to stay away from combat to greater degree where as Battle Sorcerers will likely want to mix it up closer with the ability to wear armour and being tougher.

[Thurbane]

The only issue with using a two-handed weapon as a caster is somatic components. The generally accepted rule is that you can release one hand from a weapon as a free action, cast your spell, then grip it again as another free action - but I'm not 100% convinced that is actually RAW, and some DMs might disallow it. There's a feat in Complete Mage to specifically get around this - Somatic Weaponry.

[jguy]

It is allowed. They mention it in the Duskblade entry in the PHBII

[Thurbane]

It is allowed. They mention it in the Duskblade entry in the PHBII
Are you sure? Maybe I'm not looking hard enough, but I can't seem to find it - which section of the Duskblade entry is it in?