Gish help!

[Master Thrower]

Hello playground I'm making a potential gish. I was thinking
Race neraphim for MWP

Wizard 5 eldritch knight 2 spellsword 1 ek x

This build is due to book restrictions (mostly core and early 3.5 books) any suggestions on feats and spells?

[tiercel]

What level will you be starting at? If you're starting at level 1 and want to be playing gish from the starting gun, you're probably looking at Duskblade -- though as duskblades go up in level, they are less true gish and more "fighter with a few magic tricks instead of feats, plus Big Magic Whams."

I point this out not to be contrary but if you are playing your PC from level 1, your standard no-frills gish build is going to be not-very-gishy for a while (until you hit caster level 7 and the horrors of polymorph -- additional buffs and Arcane Strike slot-burning are just tasty gravy).

Also, you almost certainly will want to sit down with your DM and discuss just how exactly he will adjudicate polymorph in your game (notably, which forms you'll be able to choose), given what a ridiculously powerful buff it is.

Before polymorph, there's alter self, which in Core might as well be called something like troglodyte form (+6 natural armor for 10 min/lvl, yes please -- not that there aren't other abusable forms as the number of books you can use goes up).

Mirror image is another buff that's too good to pass up, since it gives opponents up to a 87.5% (ablative) miss chance. Mage armor is useful early, though you'll probably spring for a +1 twilight mithral cheese chain shirt (0% ASF) as soon as your budget can afford it, if the twilight property (BoED, PHBII) is allowed. (Ditto for the +1 mithral buckler of cheese with 0% ASF and no penalty for nonproficiency.)

False life is a nice extra layer of defense (temp hp always handy for anything that sneaks through your other defenses, plus it's a long-duration spell), as long as it isn't off the table because of wizard specialization.

You'll still probably want to be able to throw around some of the classic wizard staples, especially battlefield control favorites grease, glitterdust, web, stinking cloud etc. You'll just be putting yourself in position to follow up on some of the classic save-or-sucks, as well as the rest of the party.

These are very generic (and mostly Core-restricted) thoughts on gish -- if you specify which books you have access to, you can probably get a lot more specific advice in return.

[Grendus]

You could always go with a classic Sorcadin. Paladin 2/Sorcerer 4/Spellblade 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Sacred Exorcist 8 gives you 18th level sorcerer casting, charisma to saves, mostly d8 and d10 hit dice, and turn undead for DMM shenanigans (just hope your DM hasn't read the erratta... technically DMM can only effect divine spells). If your DM has banned Complete Divine and Complete Mage, switch out Abjurant Champion and Sacred Exorcist for Eldritch Knight.


Alternatively, you could go with a canned gish... Cleric 20 or Druid 20. Divine gishing isn't quite as fun imo, not as flashy, but it's much easier to pull off when you're walking around as a base class with d8 hit dice and 3/4 BAB.

[Essence_of_War]

You can also check out the notable gishes-in-can:

You can do a lot with just a straight Hexblade 20, and if PHB2 is on the table, the Duskblade is a fine gish choice!

[Optimator]

I suppose you could do a lot of fail with Hexblade 20. Duskblade is indeed good though.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Is CMage and CWar on the table? If so, Abjurant Champion and a dip into Spellsword is the flavor of the day.

Have you considered Suel Archanamach? It's not so much on the casting side of things, but it's got a LOT of solid buffing ability. Particularly when you combo it with Abjurant Champion's capstone where CL = BAB. Makes it a PITA to dispel anything you put up.