are battle sorcs decent as a gish???

[utherphoenyx]

what my question is this does the battle sorcerer make a good gish starting point as an archer gish?

[Flickerdart]

Short answer: No.

Long answer: A standard benchmark gish has the following by 20th level: 9th level spells and 16 or more BAB. A Battle Sorcerer (and his cousin, Stalwart Sorcerer) meets only one of these requirements, and does so very poorly, because the ACF takes away the Sorcerer's spells known, his most precious resource.

If you want an archer, your best bet is Cleric or Artificer. The best archery spells are Divine.

[Grendus]

Generally speaking, if you want to be a gish you're going to be taking levels in 3/4 or full BAB PrC's that also progress your casting. Considering that all you get from the sorcerer levels in a sorc gish is casting, you really don't want to take an ACF that costs you precious spells known.

Battle sorc was a nice idea, and can be useful if you want to limit the sorcerer without necessarily nerfing it, but it's really a trap for gish builds.

[JaronK]

All you gain is a little BAB, and lose a ton of spells known. That really hurts. I'd rather just PrC out fast.

JaronK

[Gavinfoxx]

Short answer: No.
Long answer: Nnooooooooooooooooooo-ooooooooooooo-ooooooooooooooo.....

[Doc Roc]

If you want an archer, your best bet is Cleric or Artificer. The best archery spells are Divine.

Or archivist!
One of the best gish builds is simple:

Ardent 10/Slayer 10.

Sorcerer Gish is a little more intricate. I can probably build you a slick one though. Favored soul makes a really incredible gish as well.

[Eldariel]

There's always also Mystic Ranger > Sublime Chord/SE/Abjurant Champion with Sword of the Arcane Order that makes for a pretty pimpy Gish save the fact that he needs Int and Wis early on makes for some serious MAD (though it can be worked around, and Cha is the only stat that requires maxing). Pretty good as an archery Gish.

That said, Battle Sorcerer/Abjurant Champion is actually more efficient than many of the unrefined Sorcerer Gishes since while it has a gimped progression, it doesn't commit the cardinal sin of losing caster levels. There are, of course, stronger off the basis of standard Sorc but as a rule, it tends to take more system mastery to reach the casting level 20 (I'm not counting the Kobold-benefits here of course since they work the same on both sides up until character level 17 or so).

[Doc Roc]

There's always also Mystic Ranger > Sublime Chord/SE/Abjurant Champion with Sword of the Arcane Order that makes for a pretty pimpy Gish save the fact that he needs Int and Wis early on makes for some serious MAD (though it can be worked around, and Cha is the only stat that requires maxing). Pretty good as an archery Gish.

That said, Battle Sorcerer/Abjurant Champion is actually more efficient than many of the unrefined Sorcerer Gishes since while it has a gimped progression, it doesn't commit the cardinal sin of losing caster levels. There are, of course, stronger off the basis of standard Sorc but as a rule, it tends to take more system mastery to reach the casting level 20 (I'm not counting the Kobold-benefits here of course since they work the same on both sides up until character level 17 or so).

My goodness, that's a really excellent point. You're right, the alternative is a Loredrake build, or something like that. I'm not sure where I'd go with this exactly. Oh man, I hadn't looked at it that way.

Still learning new ways of examining the game. Has anyone done a loredrake\swiftblade build with circle magic before?

[Coidzor]

^: I know I've seen the first part and I know I've seen loredrakes with circle magic...

Part of me thinks I may have seen someone mention it in the past, but I'm not so sure.
There's always also Mystic Ranger > Sublime Chord/SE/Abjurant Champion with Sword of the Arcane Order that makes for a pretty pimpy Gish save the fact that he needs Int and Wis early on makes for some serious MAD (though it can be worked around, and Cha is the only stat that requires maxing). Pretty good as an archery Gish.

How are you getting into Sublime Chord? Bard Dip? Thought it required one of the two Bardic X features.

[Tvtyrant]

Couldn't a Mystic Ranger simply dip Cleric for turn undead and then divine metamagic the wizard spells, since they are now divine? If you get extra turning you could even go the persist route.

[molten_dragon]

While they aren't ideal, battle sorcerers can be a decent choice if the other option is taking a level in a non-casting class.

[docnessuno]

To be honest if you want to play a gish wich is good "out of the box" i'd suggest duskblade. Sure, it's not a T1/2 class, but it's a very solid T3, and works very well.

[Coidzor]

To be honest if you want to play a gish wich is good "out of the box" i'd suggest duskblade. Sure, it's not a T1/2 class, but it's a very solid T3, and works very well.

It's on the low end of its tier (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5293) because its spell list mostly boils down to damage and debuffs and doesn't even facilitate its primary schtick past 3rd level spells. It's most tenuous in its position because it doesn't really have much use for the sphere of existence outside of combat.

It is, indeed, an arcane barbarian. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4913.0)

[Eldariel]

How are you getting into Sublime Chord? Bard Dip? Thought it required one of the two Bardic X features.

Eh, left as an exercise to the reader. Bard dip, Mind Switch/Magic Jar/Similar-trickery, Harmonious Whatever Paladin or something of the sort. It's elementary so I didn't feel the need to list the means. Unless I'm forgetting some prerequisites, Bard 1/Mystic Ranger 9/Sublime Chord 2/Abjurant Champion 4/Sacred Exorcist 4 with Sword of the Arcane Order is perfectly doable and quite efficient.


Couldn't a Mystic Ranger simply dip Cleric for turn undead and then divine metamagic the wizard spells, since they are now divine? If you get extra turning you could even go the persist route.

The build already contains Turning so DMM would be an option. That said, I'm pretty sure the Arcane spells cast by SoTAO Mystic Ranger are still Arcane since the wording is he can prepare spells from a Wizard's book in his spell slots instead of normal. If they're still Wizard they should be Arcane. The build actually hinges on that since you need Arcane Spells of 3rd level or higher to enter SC.

[Doc Roc]

Since we're both online, do you want to help lay out the swiftblade build?

[Eldariel]

Since we're both online, do you want to help lay out the swiftblade build?

Hum, I'm not as online as I appear. I'm more in the "check forums once every 2 hours while doing stuff"-mode. That said, what exactly do we want for Circle Magic here?

Halruaan Elder would be level 5. Red Wizard would want all 10 for Great Circle so I don't think it's feasible to fit. Hathran is level 5 too. So basically, we're looking at 5 levels for Circle Magic either way, and I guess 9 in Swiftblade? Do we want Innervated Speed? Would cost us a casting level, painfully. Loredraconic Passage only covers 3.


This...seems to set things in stone, more or less. Principally we need the normal Kobold-stuff, which should steal our first levels, then entries to Swiftblade (2) and HE (2) or Hathran (2). Hathran has some annoying requirements but the added benefit of requiring Leadership. I'm...not sure which is the best though I suppose HE would make for the simplest. So that occupies our first few feats and practically all class levels (unless we go for SB early entry, I suppose, though it'd take a bit more; all the classes we're interested in have skill prerequisites after all).

[Myth]

My experience of heavily researching the topic due to wanting to play one a while back:

1. Gishes are not worth it compared to full casters.
2. Battle Sorcerers are a trap.
3. If you must Gish it up, you'll have to mix in some good PrCs.
4. There is a guide. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8786.0)

I personally favor Spellsword, Abjurant Champion, Dragonslayer, sprinkled about with Eldritch Knight if possible. Try not to lose caster levels. Entering as an Abrupt Jaunt Conjurer helps a lot. Remmeber that Gishes require buffing to be effective like other straigth melee clases like a Frenzied Berzerker/Bear Warrior for example. And beware of Reaving Dispel and the likes.

[Tengu_temp]

It's true that a gish tends to be weaker than a full caster, but since weaker here means "closer to a reasonable power level", that's a good thing. Plus, gishes are much cooler.

What is a gish, though? In DND, at least, a gish is not a character who throws a fireball, then charges in with a sword - such characters tend to be terrible on both fields. A gish is a character who uses spellcasting to boost its melee abilities, or is able to perform both as a single action - a cleric or Abjurant Champion capable of self-buffing to ridiculous levels, or a duskblade who can channel spells through its sword. A straight-classed battle sorcerer is not a good gish, because there is no synergy between its melee and casting abilities. It's just a tougher blaster.

[Novawurmson]

Obligatory Magus (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus) link.

Edit: If you're willing to consider Pathfinder material, the PF Arcane Archer (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/prestige-classes/core-rulebook/arcane-archer) isn't half bad.

[Piggy Knowles]

Agree with everything that has been said about the battle sorc. You can make a solid archer gish, but it takes a lot of spells to do it well, and the battle sorc just doesn't have them.

That said, if you're going archer gish, bard is honestly a pretty solid choice.

For a truly optimized build, you probably want to do something along the lines of Bard 8/Arcane Archer 2/Sublime Chord 2/Abjurant Champion 5/Sacred Exorcist 3. But honestly, 20 levels of bard makes a pretty solid archer.

You lose out on some spell versatility, but you do at least maintain a good selection of utility spells and some good buffs (no GMW hurts, but Haste is always an excellent choice). Inspire Courage and Dragonfire Inspiration actually provide decent buffing on their own, and Knowledge Devotion + Bardic Knack certainly don't hurt.

For spell selection if you're not going the Sublime Chord route, your standard choices apply as always, but good buffs for an archer that I always like to keep in mind include...

1- Improvisation, Swift Invisibility, Inspirational Boost
2- Alter Self, Grace, Mirror Image
3- Haste, Alter Fortune
4- Freedom of Movement, Celerity, Ruin Delver's Fortune, Sirine's Grace, Greater Invisibility Shadow Conjuration (used to pick up buff spells like Greater Mage Armor)
5- Greater Blink, Dragonsight
6- Nixie's Grace, Superior Resistance

[Flickerdart]

If you're going for Bard, then you're not really interested in most spells because you're using Dragonfire Inspiration and Heightened Sonic Weapon with Lyric Thaumaturge to add ridiculous wads of dice to your arrows. But if you don't mind spending a few feats, you can Persist the buffs you want through Metamagic Song and Talfirian Song.

[Doc Roc]

Hum, I'm not as online as I appear. I'm more in the "check forums once every 2 hours while doing stuff"-mode. That said, what exactly do we want for Circle Magic here?

Halruaan Elder would be level 5. Red Wizard would want all 10 for Great Circle so I don't think it's feasible to fit. Hathran is level 5 too. So basically, we're looking at 5 levels for Circle Magic either way, and I guess 9 in Swiftblade? Do we want Innervated Speed? Would cost us a casting level, painfully. Loredraconic Passage only covers 3.


This...seems to set things in stone, more or less. Principally we need the normal Kobold-stuff, which should steal our first levels, then entries to Swiftblade (2) and HE (2) or Hathran (2). Hathran has some annoying requirements but the added benefit of requiring Leadership. I'm...not sure which is the best though I suppose HE would make for the simplest. So that occupies our first few feats and practically all class levels (unless we go for SB early entry, I suppose, though it'd take a bit more; all the classes we're interested in have skill prerequisites after all).

The exact wording of Heighten Spell makes circle magic potentially interesting in conjunction with innervated speed.

[Rubik]

Short answer: No.

Long answer: A standard benchmark gish has the following by 20th level: 9th level spells and 16 or more BAB. A Battle Sorcerer (and his cousin, Stalwart Sorcerer) meets only one of these requirements, and does so very poorly, because the ACF takes away the Sorcerer's spells known, his most precious resource.

If you want an archer, your best bet is Cleric or Artificer. The best archery spells are Divine.Actually, psychic warrior 20 is an amazing gish, and it doesn't meet either qualification.

[Gorgondantess]

The question wasn't if battle sorcerer made a good gish, or an optimized gish, but a decent gish. And yes, they do make a decent gish. I'd say on par with any tier 3 class, or psychic warrior, which nobody can deny is decent.

[Doc Roc]

Actually, psychic warrior 20 is an amazing gish, and it doesn't meet either qualification.

Strictly inferior to Ardent 10/Slayer 10 or even PsyW 10/Slayer 10

[umbergod]

The question wasn't if battle sorcerer made a good gish, or an optimized gish, but a decent gish. And yes, they do make a decent gish. I'd say on par with any tier 3 class, or psychic warrior, which nobody can deny is decent.

this times a million. not everyone plays bleeding edge optimize to the max or die campaigns. most play in the tier 3 realm, and the battle sorcerer is just fine for a tier 3 campaign

[Rubik]

Strictly inferior to Ardent 10/Slayer 10 or even PsyW 10/Slayer 10Almost anything is inferior to ardent 10, given the fact that they can use infinite metapsionics at will.

However, I never said psywar 20 wasn't inferior to those. I said it made a great gish and didn't meet either 9th level spells (or powers) or 16+ BAB.

Properly set up, a psywar can hang in a party with the T1s and not feel like dead weight, assuming we aren't talking Pun-Pun levels of optimization.

That's pretty impressive on its own.

[utherphoenyx]

The question wasn't if battle sorcerer made a good gish, or an optimized gish, but a decent gish. And yes, they do make a decent gish. I'd say on par with any tier 3 class, or psychic warrior, which nobody can deny is decent.

ty btw the reason i even asked is because i am playing solo in my friends world cause he begged me to play so yeah warrior/magi is kinda what i do..

[Zaq]

Interestingly, battle sorcs are one of the only ways to get Arcane Strike in E6. It's very difficult to otherwise get +4 BAB and 3rd level arcane spells in 6 levels. I won't say it's impossible, but I don't personally know of any other ways to do it without homebrew "this qualifies you as if you had a higher BAB" tricks. (They're hit even harder by E6's limits than normal sorcs, of course, but if Arcane Strike is instrumental to your character concept, they're one of your best options.)

[Abies]

The only way the battle sorc in our campaign was able to remain relevant was to possess a spell-storing sword (through which he cast energy admixtured {whatever} spells); hid behind the tank and had the buffs/heals of the party cleric.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not exactly certain what the Battle Sorc brought to our group, and this was my brother (No, my literal brother, as in he was in the same uterus 18 months before me). My Cleric handled the Charisma issues (@17 vs 22+, advantage: him), party buffing and enemy debuffing. An RP/role problem to be sure, and certainly it was not an "optimized" party, still, he failed to contribute as an even party-level member.

The misguided attempt to place a Sorc as a frontline/midline combatant just cheapens the class. Sure the idea of a "battle sorc" might be ok to lower the "tier" of sorcs if this varient was made mandatory; but in my limited experience with a "Battle Sorcerer" (brother playing one in a campaign for 4 years) I am opposed to the class. (Yes, I let him know early on how poor of an option I though this was).

[Coidzor]

Solo character, eh? That changes the game completely.

Druid or Artificer may be better for you than being an arcane gish, especially a sorcerer-casting based one. Alternatively, if you have enough levels, there are several methods you can employ to get your mitts on minions to screen you and provide the damage output while you control the battlefield with spells.

Alternatively, if you can get dragon magazine material, Mystic Ranger combined with Wildshaping Ranger and the Trapfinding ACF from Dungeonscape and taking the feats Sword of the Arcane Order, Natural Spell, and Wild Cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) is fairly close to being a one-man party.

What level are you starting at?

[utherphoenyx]

i see but aren't the HP doubling per hit die worth it as well? and some armor wearing? especially for solo play?

[utherphoenyx]

my friend always starts at lvl 1 and i earn my way up.. so far tho ihave done pretty well already got a level up and through story bonuses (btw he loves to do that) have close to 40 hp

[Flickerdart]

They're not enough to make up for losing the spells. You shouldn't be getting hit to start with, especially in a solo campaign where you can pace encounters to what you can handle.

[utherphoenyx]

kinda hard to "pace" an encounter when you get attacked my 3-4 wolves

[Flickerdart]

3 wolves against a 1st level character? Battle Sorcerer wouldn't have saved you - that's a CR3 encounter. A party of level 1s would have found it pretty difficult.

[utherphoenyx]

ohhh i had my second level by that point sadly it was the goblin ambush of 6 of them when i out smarted them familiar and teleport spell they couldn't find me by the time they found me i had killed three of them and they are cowards so...and the spell was benign traslocation and by that point i used my longbow that made the dm think he could get away with it

[Coidzor]

^: On the other hand, wolves can't climb very well, so a nearby tree would've been quite the tactical advantage...
i see but aren't the HP doubling per hit die worth it as well? and some armor wearing? especially for solo play?

hmm? What are you referring to? The d8 versus d4 HD?

Artificer is a d6, sure, but the other ones I mentioned are all d8s (though, really, rangers should be d10s, though perhaps mystic rangers would be more appropriate as d8s to the d10s of standard rangers...) and also have armor proficiencies greater than or equal to that of a battle sorcerer as well as other advantages, like being able to afford a couple of skillpoints in climb for those points early on before you've got good mobility.

[Myth]

If you're playing solo ask to get a Gestalt character. Dual Cleric/Crusader or Wizard/Factotum. Hell, even a simple Cleric/Ranger won't be half-bad. Gestalt will make it better for sure.

Of course Gestalt is very prone to optimization, things like Dweomerkeeper, psionics, Factotum, RVK (you know, things that break the action economy or are too good anyway) will be really nice.

[utherphoenyx]

i see yes well i don't need climb with my translocation spell if i get my raven to fly into the tree and cast a spell also i have picked up an npc...a human rogue he is only lvl 1 he nearly died to the wolves luckily was rescued by a pair of centaurs i helped kill an entire goblin tribe.....tho very special tactics went into that one.... i think that is why he thought 6 wolves i could beat the thing is i used trickery and traps... e.g pit and net traps to isolate the 180+ warriors from the 2 hobo Lt. and the bugbear chieftan with his goblin sgt. i then was able to crit on my bow twice once on each hobo and the centaur charged the bugbear while the npc druid used her magic to control a ring of wildfire and confuse them along with the pixie stirring the chaos a whole lot lol was fun though.

[kulosle]

so what should be discussed when bringing up gish is the war weaver (forget which book). at the beginning of each fight you have 5 buffs. this makes you better then the majority of fighters. I can't remember if it's limited to arcane, if not, then divine power makes up for the BAB loss.

[Rubik]

so what should be discussed when bringing up gish is the war weaver (forget which book). at the beginning of each fight you have 5 buffs. this makes you better then the majority of fighters. I can't remember if it's limited to arcane, if not, then divine power makes up for the BAB loss.Heroes of Battle. It's an arcane casting prestige class, but you're not restricted to using arcane-only spells with your class abilities.

[Doc Roc]

Heroes of Battle. It's an arcane casting prestige class, but you're not restricted to using arcane-only spells with your class abilities.

And there's a trick for getting in with favored souls.

[utherphoenyx]

[QUOTE=Coidzor;12263818]Solo character, eh? That changes the game completely.

yes it does when you don't have a fellow meat shield i mean "traveling companion" it tends to make you feel squishy and tasty with bread on the troll or ogres bread... btw in the story i have i need to get from the elven forest past a few trolls to the human wildlands then off to the capitol city to claim my thrown also something to consider in his world sorcs are far more common and they are the only true nobility of the human imperial throne and wizards although they exist can not by law make title claims as well as people recognize sorcerer magic because of the "royal archmage" most title but in order to have claim a player must have at least 1 lvl in the PrC archmage

[kulosle]

So what then something like socerer 5, rainbow servant 10, war weaver 5? That definitely sounds like fun to me. All of the best buffs are on the clerics list.