Review My New Fighter Mage

[Gelcur]

My first real post here after reading a bunch of threads so if I forget something important or something is not formatted correctly please feel free to tell me.

I'm building a new PC for a quest. I've been DMing an on going quest for 7 years so I've been out of the player circle for a while. My new DM one of my former players is running a group of us and is allowing us to start at level 8. He is also allowing any WotC source including Dragon. Obviously we are running 3.5.

My goal is to make a fighter/mage, gish, who is very tough to kill plus has some interesting RP flavor here is what I've come up with. I like making my PCs up to 20 so I don't have to think as much about leveling later.

The War Strategist
Human
Ftr2/Conj4/SpSw1/AbCh5/ElKn8

Stats: (via non-standard point buy, 23 pts, +1 pt above 10)
Str:15 (Would be putting points here every 4 levels for 20 at lvl 20)
Dex: 12
Con: 16
Int: 20
Wis: 10
Chr: 10

Feats
Ftr1:Able Learner, Wedded to History(Survivor), Combat Expertise
Ftr2:Power Attack
Conj3:Combat Casting, Improved Initiative(ACF)
Conj4:
Conj5:
Conj6:Obtain Familiar(DM allowing me to use Item Familiar from Pathfinder)
SpSw7:
AbCh8:
AbCh9:Knowledge Devotion
AbCh10:
AbCh11:
AbCh12:(TBD Feat)
ElKn13:(TBD Feat)
ElKn14:
ElKn15:Extend Spell
ElKn16:
ElKn17:
ElKn18:Persistent Spell
ElKn19:
ElKn20:

Other important info, I've sunk points into taking the Skill Tricks for Collector of Stories and Twisted Charge. Obviously Conjurer gives me Abrupt Jaunt. Wedded to History is from Dragon354 and I took survivor to make up for my low Ref save. DM is giving us 27k in gold to spend as we please. Weapon of choice is a +1 Adamantine Greatsword with wand chamber and armor is +1 Mithril Fullplate with mods to bring it down to 10% ASF eating up 18500.

I'm looking for an overall review, what to fill missing feats in with, other gear, and exactly how broken can I make Abrupt Jump, or I should say exactly the rules on it, do I need to use it before the opponents attack roll, before damage roll, whatever?

Ideas I've been toying with, Improved Trip, Craft Contigent Spell, Wand of Nerveskitter, Wand of Wraithstrike.

Thanks, spell list to follow in later post.

[Seharvepernfan]

Were I you, I'd try to get quicken spell.

Do your classes chosen give you 9th level spells by 20th? I'd try to get that, even if only for 9th level slots (lower level spell + metamagic).

Is there a cleric on your team who can cast Righteous Might?

If you go for improved trip, don't use a greatsword. Get a scythe or a polearm. Or a spiked chain, but I just hate those things.
I don't have any real advice, personally. It looks like you have a pretty good build.

[Aeryr]

Eldritch knight is normally a bad gish class, it doesn't give you many things.

Check Jade Phoenix Mage, much stronger and flavorful.

Overall you can be

Warblade 1 / Wizard 4 / Abjurant champion 5 / Jade phoenix Mage 10

That would net you 9th level spells and 18 BAB Also some good maneuvers.

Otherwise the other good gish class is swiftblade

Wizard 5 / Abjurant champion 5 / Swift blade 10

In a completely unrelated topic Seharvepernfan your avatar is pretty cool where is it from?

[Seharvepernfan]

Oh, duh, swiftblade! I always think of it as a "lighter" class, whereas this guy is kinda "heavy", but it'd still work. Check it out.



In a completely unrelated topic Seharvepernfan your avatar is pretty cool where is it from?

A tumblr. I don't know what it is originally.

[Fable Wright]

Otherwise the other good gish class is swiftblade

Wizard 5 / Abjurant champion 5 / Swift blade 10

This is actually an illegal build; Abjurant Champion requires BAB +5, which Wizard 5 does not give. You could go Wizard 6/Swiftblade 10/Abjurant Champion 4, though, which makes a fun build.

Though, as for the OP: If you can lose the fighter levels in any way, try to. The bonus feats can be nice, but they're not as good as caster levels. Here's what I would recommend:
1. If you're set on having a melee class, then at least be a Warblade. You get so much more out of each level than you do Fighter levels, it's kinda scary. Stances get you permanent bonuses, Counters can help give you defensive options, Boosts give you nice advantages, and so on. It also opens up Jade Phoenix Mage, which is pretty powerful and has a number of awesome benefits for mages.
2. If Tome of Battle is off the table, then there are still a number of Gish classes that you could get into that are so much better. For example, there is the Swiftblade class, which you get into with Wizard 6, that gives a slew of amazing abilities for relatively minimal investment. Alternatively, you could go with Knight Phantom for more caster levels, which also opens up Abjurant Champion sooner if you wanted to focus on Abjurant Champion abilities.
3. Be aware of variants and spells that help your character. Martial Wizard converts your Wizard bonus feats into feats that actually help you in combat. Luminous Armor is a spell you can prepare that gives you essentially a +9 bonus to armor class with a duration of Hours/Level. Grab a Rod of Lesser Extend Spell, and you can have it up all day. There's also the 4th level Greater version of it that gives you essentially a +12 bonus to armor class. Use either with Extend Spell, and you have a huge armor class without sinking a ton of wealth into your armor. It does deal strength damage to use it, but it you buy an Rod of Bodily Restoration, that cost becomes negligible, while still giving you amazing defensive benefits at less investment than the armor you propose getting.

This should help you on your way, at least.

[Gelcur]

Thanks for the input.


Were I you, I'd try to get quicken spell.
I had thought about Quicken as one of the Metamagic feats to take but then I wondered what to Quicken. True Strike was the only one that came to mind. Shield too but that gets quickened for free from AbCh. I tried to focus my list on swift and immediate spells. I assume a swift/immediate spell can be cast as a standard action as well?


Do your classes chosen give you 9th level spells by 20th? I'd try to get that, even if only for 9th level slots (lower level spell + metamagic).
At 20 this gives me a BAB of 18 and 9th level slots, but not before 20.


Is there a cleric on your team who can cast Righteous Might?
We might have a cleric we might not.


If you go for improved trip, don't use a greatsword. Get a scythe or a polearm. Or a spiked chain, but I just hate those things.
I don't have any real advice, personally. It looks like you have a pretty good build.
Yeah the original build was to take improved trip with a spiked chain and take 3.0 knockdown with the latest RAW ruling that would give me the additional attack from improved trip. But it felt meh, plus I like the look and feel of the greatsword with a war general.


Eldritch knight is normally a bad gish class, it doesn't give you many things.

Check Jade Phoenix Mage, much stronger and flavorful.
I'm not a fan of Tome of Battle and I doubt the DM will like all the additional rules about stances and maneuvers.


Otherwise the other good gish class is swiftblade
I did look briefly into Swiftblade. It has some really nice flavor to it. I just didn't like the number of CL losses it had in it. I guess if I did something like Ftr1/Conj6/SpSw1/AbCh5/SwBl6/???1. That might work. Any suggestions as to something that would give +1 BAB and +1 CL at 1st level, I know there is Dragonsalyer, but that doesn't fit very well with the rest of the theme.



2. If Tome of Battle is off the table, then there are still a number of Gish classes that you could get into that are so much better. For example, there is the Swiftblade class, which you get into with Wizard 6, that gives a slew of amazing abilities for relatively minimal investment. Alternatively, you could go with Knight Phantom for more caster levels, which also opens up Abjurant Champion sooner if you wanted to focus on Abjurant Champion abilities.
Yes, lets assume that it is off the table. Swiftblade is very interesting, I doubt my DM would allow me to take Knight Phantom since it has Campaign specific requirements.



3. Be aware of variants and spells that help your character. Martial Wizard converts your Wizard bonus feats into feats that actually help you in combat. Luminous Armor is a spell you can prepare that gives you essentially a +9 bonus to armor class with a duration of Hours/Level. Grab a Rod of Lesser Extend Spell, and you can have it up all day. There's also the 4th level Greater version of it that gives you essentially a +12 bonus to armor class. Use either with Extend Spell, and you have a huge armor class without sinking a ton of wealth into your armor. It does deal strength damage to use it, but it you buy an Rod of Bodily Restoration, that cost becomes negligible, while still giving you amazing defensive benefits at less investment than the armor you propose getting.
Yep, I already took Martial Wizard that is how I get Improved Init at level 3. I do really like Luminous Armor and the greater version of it. I fear that the DM might attempt to dispell it or have us do some fighting in a dead magic zone and then I'd be up the creek. What I can be pretty sure of is he will throw plenty of loot our way so I'm not too scared of being able to buy armor upgrades, plus that frees up spell slots. What I also didn't mention earlier is the likely party configuration will be a melee rogue, a distance rogue/skill monkey, a divine caster maybe straight cleric maybe not and me. So I may very well be the main fighter in the group.

Thanks again for the feedback. Please keep it coming.

[Fable Wright]

A couple of things, here:
1. The setting-specific requirements are mostly fluff-based, so it really just depends on your DM. I would allow it, personally, but there might be a case against it.
2. If you suspect your DM of using Dispelling or Dead Magic zone fighting, you're up a creek without a paddle anyways. Against Dispelling, you can always use a Ring of Counterspelling, which gives you a Get Out of Jail Free card against dispelling, and you can just massacre whatever just tried to dispel all your buffs instead. Against Area Dispels, you can just order your buffs in such a way that Luminous Armor is the last one rolled against. And, if push comes to shove, you can use a 1st or 2nd level spell slot to prepare Mage Armor or Luminous Armor, to keep you at least moderately protected throughout the day.
3. I have a hunch that you're writing Swiftblade off to easily. Let's look at what you get: (Ex) Haste, (Ex) 50% Miss chance against targeted spells and attacks, free Quickening all of your Hastes, +YES to initiative, (Ex) DODGE bonuses to AC and Attack Rolls, (Ex) Freedom of Movement, (Ex) Extra Standard action each round, and (Ex) Quickened Timestop that lets you abuse those extra Standard actions. Notice how all of those, including Haste, are Ex abilities. That is, an Antimagic Field won't turn them off. You can't dispel them. As long as you have a Haste active, which you can cast as a Swift action, you are a terror in combat, and can do far, far more in an antimagic field than anyone else. Yes, if you go Swiftblade 10 you can't get 9th level spells. Alternatively, going Swiftblade 10 means that you can kill anything that did get 9th level spells. Swiftblade has the unique ability to murder spellcasters from inside an Antimagic field, and their defensive options are top-notch. They go first, can't be grappled, have 50% miss chance vs everything, have an awesome Reflex save, can eventually Quickened TIMESTOP at level 16, with an extra Standard action each round. They may not be the best spellcasters, but they are very, very fast, and very, very hard to kill.
4. Why do you keep trying to keep the Fighter levels in the build? They're not that good...
5. If you want a character that is just plain hard to kill, and don't particularly care about superhuman levels of intellect, Sorcadins can make astounding Juggernauts. Cha to saves twice and Immediate action negate one attack both make it very hard to kill from the start, and if you make it an Illumian you can later use Naenhoon to Persist two spells for free each day.

[ThiagoMartell]

Your build is very standard and should be fine as is.
You should be more worried about which spells to prepare, IMHO.

[Rhaegar14]

Your build is very standard and should be fine as is.
You should be more worried about which spells to prepare, IMHO.

On this note, as this is also a concern, I give you this (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202304) thread for a campaign I was in last summer. There's some pretty solid advice on spell selection in there.

@Thiago: Fire and Blood. :-P

[Randomguy]

A very solid gish build: You've got the required BAB and 9th level spells.

It could certainly be better though. I suggest swapping out eldritch knight for knight phantom (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050706a&page=4). It costs you a feat, but other than that you don't lose anything. In fact, you get better hit dice, phantom steed 1/day/class level, and 2 neat class features as supernatural abilities (so they can't be dispelled).

I also prefer the feel of the "knight on horseback" battle strategist over than the infantry one.

Also, this lets you do hit and run tactics pretty well, since with ride by attack plus your mount's crazy high speed, you can get well out of any enemy's melee range. You'd want a lance instead of a greatsword, though.

Whether or not you go Knight Phantom, you should take arcane strike for a boost to damage and to hit. Off the top of my head, some good spells are fist of stone, enlarge person, sonic weapon, bulls strength, enlarge weapon, blades of flame, weapon of energy, haste, blur, mirror image, greater blink, greater mirror image, greater magic weapon, greater mighty wallop (if you get a heavy flail or greatclub instead of a greatsword) and whirling blade (if you stick with a greatsword).