Machine Gun... Gish?

[LordotheMorning]

I'm currently playing a 1Swordsage/3Halfling Paragon/2 Fighter/1 Invisible Blade/1 Whisperknife/4 Master Thrower. Obviously, I've thrown a lot of daggers in my time. Recently, however, due to a wish that turned out better than I could have possibly imagined, I've been given the spellcasting ability of a level 8 sorcerer without having any class levels in it. The question now is how best to use it. There's very little oriented around throwing gishes, however. It's much easier to find spells and builds that work for melee gishes or projectile weapon gishes.

My character seldom fights in melee, if at all. I have 10 strength and no weapon finesse (although I do have two feycraft daggers). I do more straight damage than sneak attack (I currently only have 1d6 sneak attack), but I may build into more SA dice in the future. I can't really make use of shapeshifting/polymorph because, A.) Roleplay, as my character is too proud of his halfling traits to change his form, and B.) I'll probably do more damage as a halfling anyway. A frustratingly large amount of gish-oriented spells do not work with thrown weapons, or they don't allow use of normal BAB and Dexterity. I've only got a Charisma of 14 (but I also have a cloak of charisma +4 lying around), and I don't really want to go for many spells that involve save DCs. My ranged attack rolls are through the roof, so rays and buffs seem like the best options. I need help fleshing out my spell list. Here's what I've got so far, taken from mostly PHB, PHBII, SpC, and Complete Adv:

1: (5 known) Guided Shot (PERFECT!), Nerveskitter. Not sure about: Critical Strike, Wall of Smoke, Magic Missle, Shocking Grasp, True Strike (which seems redundant because I'll be hitting with touch attacks next level due to Master Thrower)
2: (3 known) Heroics, Daggerspell Stance, Wings of Cover. Other ideas: Mirror Image, Scorching Ray, Mirror Image
3: (2 known) This is where it starts to get hairier. I want to take the spell Blacklight (creates complete magical darkness that only I can see in), because it obviates the need for invisibility and mirror image, and I LOVE the flavor. I know most people would advise me to take haste, but there's already a lot of haste-casters running around in our party, and because of my DM's ruling with Shadow Blade, I don't necessarily need more damage output. I could use it, but I'd also really like some more utility. The idea I had for this was Ray of Dizziness.
4: This spell level is killing me. I have only one choice. I thought about taking nightmare terrain because it lets me hide even while being observed, but Blacklight makes this seem obsolete. Greater Mirror Image fails in the same way. I've already got upwards of 30 AC and Wings of Cover to defend me. I deal more damage with a full attack than with Wings of Flurry and my DC isn't optimized, so I think that's out too. I also can't find utility that seems reusable enough for a sorcerer. I've thought about Resilient Sphere, Celerity, and Dimensional Anchor, but alas, I can't see them coming into play very often.

Mostly it's the 4th level spell that I need. The final question is one of advancement. Obviously, spellcasting ability opens up a lot of new prestige options. I'm going to take my final level of Master Thrower, but what then? Is Daggerspell Mage worth the investment? It's a whole 8 levels before I can actually throw things with it. The sneak attack dice are nice, but I can't use any melee-related class features well. Any other ideas? Are there any feats or class features besides daggerspell mage based on gishing with thrown weapons? This character is mostly about throwing daggers. I don't want to play a thrower and a straight mage at the same time, but rather use my spell casting to augment the throwing. Otherwise, there's a whole lot of invisible blade and whisperknife levels calling my name.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Fire shuriken from CArc and SC might be worthwhile to stockpile weapons, they deal 3d6 damage and you get 1 +1/3level shurikens per cast and as they are instantaneous you can get a lot of them during downtime.

[Hashmir]

Looking at Complete Arcane. I dunno if this is helpful, but here's what I've found:

Whirling Blade (level 2) - Hurl a slashing weapon (like a dagger) 60 feet, hitting each foe in the way. You make a single normal melee attack against each foe, but you use your Int or Cha for the attack and damage rolls instead of Str. Damage dealt includes any modifiers from feats, etc. that would affect a normal melee attack.

[nedz]

THe obvious 4th level spells are :-
Dimension door: a get-out
Greater Invisibility
Shadow Conjuration - this is so versitile, its a whole pack of spells. Your DC may be a bit rubbish though ?
Orb of X (6 choices here from the SpC)

Offensive spells with saves are probably a bad idea unless you happen to have high Cha.

Normally with a Sorc you want your one and only first spell of a new level to be something you can spam since you will have it 3+/day. This may, or may not, not be the case here.

Obvious PrCs are ones which advance spellcasting.
So Abjurant Champion perhaps ? Better than Eldritch Knight anyway. Both of these are full BAB.
Unseen Seer may work for you: spellcasting and sneak damage and skills and more ?

[Dusk Eclipse]

Unseen seer seems to be the best Pg.C it has 3/4 BAB 10/10 Casting advancement, sneak attack 3/10 or something like that and you can get bonus spell from other lists, Hunter's Eye (I think) it is usually the first option as it gives you 1d6/3 CL sneak attack and it gives you a bonus CL for Divination spells

[Rubik]

What about Explosive Runes? Take it as your 4th level spell, and you can abuse them rather readily. Either see if you can scribe the runes directly on your arrows knives, or tie a small bit of paper you've scribed on to your arrows knives. Each one gets to explode if it's damaged, and if you tie them to the points of your arrows knives they'll get ripped to shreds as soon as the arrow knife penetrates them when it hits.

Booyah! An extra 6d6 force damage on every hit!

You can also use Shrink Item shenanigans, if you like. Throw a Small-sized dagger, and when it hits it expands to the size of a greatsword. You can also throw pebbles from above and have someone call out the command word so that they turn into boulders.

Also useful as protection vs antimagic fields and charging barbarians! (As well as any other AoE or targeted effect you can think of; just grab a pet --Obtain Familiar!!!-- that can talk that will sit on your shoulder and ready the command word for when something you don't like is about to hit you.)

[CigarPete]

Before you make any choices about PrCs, I would check with the DM to see if he will let you advance the Sorcerer casting, since all of these PrCs explicitly advance the spellcasting ability of another class, which this is not.

As far as your spell, I don't see how you can go wrong with Dimension Door, the best 4th level spell in any book, IMO. Improved Invisibility is good, but DD has so much utility both in and out of combat that it winds up being my first choice for that level every time.

[Rubik]

Before you make any choices about PrCs, I would check with the DM to see if he will let you advance the Sorcerer casting, since all of these PrCs explicitly advance the spellcasting ability of another class, which this is not.Hmm. True. Jade phoenix mage? Perhaps abjurant champion?


As far as your spell, I don't see how you can go wrong with Dimension Door, the best 4th level spell in any book, IMO. Improved Invisibility is good, but DD has so much utility both in and out of combat that it winds up being my first choice for that level every time.Too bad it screws up your action economy by wasting the remaining entirety of your turn. Still not horrible, but not great. How 'bout Baleful Transposition?

[Flickerdart]

It's not quite what you're looking for, but Cloud of Knives (2nd level, PHB2) and Persistent Blade (1st level, SPC) are both good spells for conjuring knifey doom for your opponents and then falling back on physical attacks while they do their thing without your help.

[Randomguy]

Girallon's blessing gives you 2 extra arms, for extra throwing.

For fourth level spells there's bloodstar, which creates a construct that makes people that take damage also save vs. constitution damage. This has decent synergy with machine gun attacks: Hit the guy 10 times, they need to save 10 times.
Illusory wall is useful if you're creative, and enervation is a good debuff without too many level dependant variables.

[LordotheMorning]

Thanks for the input, guys, I appreciate it.

As much as I love the explosive runes idea, it's actually 3rd level spell and not a 4th level, which ironically means it's up against tougher competition. I could scrap ray of dizziness, I suppose, but I can't use it with my set of teleporting daggers because they will be sundered by the spell (deals full damage to whatever it was cast on). I can whip up some mundane daggers, though. It's the utility of a no-save nausea vs. the novelty of having exploding daggers and the damage that comes with it. I'm leaning toward the latter, just because of how much fun it sounds.

Don't want to sound overly negative here, but I've pored over a lot of these spells before and couldn't make them fit.

Fire Shuriken- I deal 14-16 damage with each dagger. Fun as they might be, I'm afraid my normal attacks are simply better in terms of damage.

Whirling Blade- The words "melee attack" almost invariably screw me. I can't use weapon tricks or dex mod, which means -9 to hit and my damage is cut in half (no two-with-one-blow weapon trick). Similar problem with cloud of knives and persistent blade: They don't use my ranged attack and damage bonuses.

Dimension door- I've already got shadow jaunt, which is far enough for me. For everything else, I have a wicked stealth roll and darklight/smokesticks.

Orb of X- At the moment, the highest I could get my DC with these is 18, which really isn't all that spectacular at this level. Also, the damage is, again, obsolete. I'll be attacking with touch attacks next level, and 8d6 isn't anywhere near what I could accomplish with a full attack.

Improved invisibility- I've got the Cloak of Deception maneuver, which means I can already get this for a round. More importantly, with blacklight, it just doesn't seem necessary. Blacklight is actually more difficult to counter, has better flavor (imo), and is only a level 3 spell. Same reason I'd rather not take Greater Mirror Image. It's only drawback is that blacklight is more conspicuous, but again, I still have good stealth checks if I want to be subtle.

Blessing of Girallon- wouldn't this require some sort of multiattack feat? It says it gives natural attacks.

Bloodstar- Might work out. With a full attack, I can force 8 saves per round, or 10 if I use heroics for the next level of TWF (which I plan to do). The spell's wording in terms of area of effect is a bit confusing, though. Can opponents move out from under the bloodstar to escape it's effects? Can multiple targets within 10 feet be affected? Can I change targets?

I did verify that I can qualify for prestige classes based on sorcerer levels. It's one of the first things I mentioned after being granted the wish.

Jade Phoenix Mage is an interesting idea, but right and left I'm getting screwed by the two words "melee attack". Arcane Wrath? Melee Attack. Empowering/Quickening Strike? Strikes, which almost exclusively require Melee Attacks. I can scarcely use any strikes with thrown weapons. Doing so would require the use of Bloodstorm Blade, which I've considered in the past, but it's just a big mess for a dexterity based character. It'd essentially be like starting over, because using thunderous throw, I'd lose all the benefits from my ranged feats, as well as my thrown weapon tricks, one of which is responsible for doubling my damage. I'd go from (1d3+14)x8 down to (1d3+10)x4, and I'd need to blow a feat on weapon finesse and STILL suffer a -3 to hit.

I could potentially get access to a lot of cool things with thunderous throw, but there's no synergy to it. I would basically have two ways of doing damage, when I can only use one. Is there some saving grace to this class? Every time I look at it, it feels hopeless. I suppose I could forgo the class entirely and simply occasionally employ my two feycraft daggers if I want to use quickened strike, but it makes arcane wrath useless because I can just do more damage by throwing normally. Thus is the core of my frustration.

What I really, REALLY, need are things that allow my to use my ranged attack and damage modifiers. There don't seem to be ANY spells that do this without replacing the damage (I.E. damaging ray attacks). Something like Blades of Fire, except Blades of Fire only applies to melee attacks. I can't use strength, and I'd rather not use my casting stat either. If there was such a thing out there that let me use my ranged attack/damage roll on a melee attack, that would be incredible, but I've never heard of such a thing existing.

What's your opinion on Unseen Seer vs. Daggerspell Mage vs. Jade Phoenix Mage? Those seem like the three most likely candidates, but keep in mind that when it comes to class features, if I can't throw it, I probably can't use it. I'm a HUGE fan of channeling, but it seems as though daggerspell mage is the only class that makes it work for thrown weapons. Abjurant champion will be a fantastic filler for levels when I don't have anything else to take, but I'd like to be a bit more offensive when I can. Other ideas are still welcome too.

[CigarPete]

Pretty sure the Spellsword channeling ability is usable with thrown and missile weapons, though it discharges regardless of whether the weapon hits or not.

[LordotheMorning]

It says "He can channel any spell he can cast into his melee weapon," but it doesn't necessarily say only his melee weapon, so it's kind of gray.

[Heatwizard]

It says "He can channel any spell he can cast into his melee weapon," but it doesn't necessarily say only his melee weapon, so it's kind of gray.

I dunno about that. Daggers are a melee weapon, even if you decide to just toss 'em everywhere instead of conventional swinging.

[Randomguy]

None of those prestige classes are really a great idea. Unseen seer doesn't synergise much with anything really, but it gives full casting, sneak attack and extra divination spells. Only a few of daggerspell mage's abilities benefit you, since the class is mostly geared for melee. Those that do come at higher levels, so it's really only worth it if the campaign you're in will go on a while. Otherwise, pick unseen seeer. JPM isn't geared for stealth or ranged and is based around martial strikes, which I don't think you can make with ranged attacks. Abjurant champion would be a better alternative to JPM.

The closest things there are to spells that let you take advantage of your ranged attack tricks all apply to arrows, not thrown weapons, like melf's slumber arrows and arrow storm and prismatic bow. There are, however, some spells that temporarily enchant your weapons, like greater magic weapon, Burning sword (level 2), weapon of energy (level 3), sonic weapon (level 2), dolorous blow (level 3, doubles threat range), Hurl (level 3, gives weapon the returning property) and infernal wound (level 2 but it's an evil spell).

Girrallon's blessing does give natural attacks, but you can wield weapons with your extra hands instead of using the natural attacks. It would require multiweapon fighting though, but it says that's the same thing as TWF for characters with more than 2 hands, so having TWF could make it work.

Blades of fire only applies on melee weapons, like daggers. It says nothing about melee attacks, so you could probably still make it work.

[Leon]

Orb of X- At the moment, the highest I could get my DC with these is 18, which really isn't all that spectacular at this level. Also, the damage is, again, obsolete. I'll be attacking with touch attacks next level, and 8d6 isn't anywhere near what I could accomplish with a full attack.


Still look at Lesser Orb of Sound - Sonic Damage is a useful thing to have as a alternate way to break things and its a rare damage type to be resisted.

Similarly Orb of Force for its hard to resist and damage uses

[Rubik]

Factotum could get you +Int to your attacks, damage and so on.

An Inspire Courage-optimized bard (a couple of feats and a bunch of items can boost your bonuses pretty darned high, especially for a chaingun attacker)? Go prestige bard?

[LordotheMorning]

Factotum could get you +Int to your attacks, damage and so on.

An Inspire Courage-optimized bard (a couple of feats and a bunch of items can boost your bonuses pretty darned high, especially for a chaingun attacker)? Go prestige bard?

How does one go about optimizing Inspire Courage? I've never had anything to do with Bards before. It looks like music would just eat my actions.

Also: I neglected the mention that the wish that gave me the spellcasting was actually a series of three wishes. Another one of my wishes was to have a defense against spellcasters (by which I was trying to get spell resistance). I didn't know whether or not it worked until my last game session, in which I learned that instead of SR, I got the ability to take an immediate action every time I am the target of a spell (but the action taken must involve defending myself from the magical attack). In light of this discovery, I think Dispelling Screen would be the ideal level 4 spell. If I'm reading the description right can simply throw one up as an immediate action and effectively block anything. Does it protect against targeted spells that don't require attack rolls? And for that matter, if a spell DOES require an attack roll, can I simply use my immediate action to move out of the way?

As far as prestige classes go, I'm pretty sure I'll be going for Daggerspell Mage after I finish my final level of Master Thrower. My effective plan for the character ends there. From then on, I'm already an effective fighter. I deal huge amounts of DPS for my level, so I'll probably have the time to sit on Daggerspell Mage levels for a while, even if they don't give me a whole lot. It WILL still increase my damage, due to increased sneak attack, and improve my spellcasting at the same time. The fluff fits my character quite nicely, I don't lose caster levels unlike several other options, and while I won't be able to use most of the class features until level 8, the eventual Arcane Throw makes all of the class features compatible with my build, which is actually saying quite a lot. Daggerspell Flurry only requires one melee attack, which in turn will give me a free throw to deliver the quickened touch spell that I will then cast. Overall, it pans out as an increase in DPS AS WELL AS the utility of free quickened spells. It's just contingent on being able to make a melee attack.

What I'll probably do is take Daggerspell Mage 8, followed by Whisperknife 2 in order to get the Defensive Throw class feature (I've already got one level in the class), which will enable to attack in melee, and then turn around and throw without worry about AoOs. Then I'll finish the final levels of a Daggerspell Mage for Daggerspell Flurry.

The final deciding factor for this decision is that Abjurant Champion requires Combat Casting, which is a feat space I cannot currently spare.

[Daftendirekt]

Inspire Courage optimization:

Inspirational Boost, 1st level spell from SpC, gives a +1 to next Inspire Courage you perform.

Song of the Heart feat from ECS gives you another +1, among other things. Obtainable at 3rd level, IIRC.

Dragonfire Inspiration feat from Dragon Magic gives Xd6 in fire damage instead of +X to hit/dmg and saves vs. fear. Since it is technically different than IC, you can have both in effect at once. However, you need to be dragonblooded to get this, so either be a dragonwrought kobold or one of the dragonblooded races from earlier in Dragon Magic (Silverbrow human, forestlord half-elf, etc)

Words of Creation from BoED doubles your IC bonuses at the cost of non-lethal damage to yourself.

I think that's all of it?