archmage gish build

[morkendi]

Messing around with the idea, so far this the best i came up with. Levels in order fighter 1/ diviner 1/ human paragon 1-3/ fighter 2/ spellsword 1/ abjurent champion 1-5/ diviner 5 more lvls/ archmage 3. Bab is low at 13, but ua varient lets you add int mod to roll once per 5 lvls. Abjurent champ also has its benefits to boost. Spellsword was just to get the bab for abjurent champ without loosing a cl. Build gives access to 9th lvl spells with çl of 21 with practiced spell caster and spell power from arch mage. Total nine feats and some class abilities that work together.

Feats not in order. Power attack, cleave, channel spell, great cleave, skill focus spell craft, spell focus abjuration, spell focus illusion, combat casting, practiced spell caster. 2 flaws to add improve initiative, and archane strike.

Only weakness i see is terrible reflex save. Low bab, better than wiz though and can add int mod twice a day. Play like Batman wizard with a great sword, and it could work. Land touch debuffs like shivering touch through your normal attack with channel spell.

[eggs]

You could push your your BA up by dropping the fighter level and the second set of Diviner levels and replacing them with Eldritch Knight (or Ruathar/Sacred Exorcist/Halfling Whistler/anything). It loses a feat, but Great Cleave probably won't come up more than twice in a campaign.

Where are you getting channel spell?

[Ernir]

Archmage + Gish? Okay.

If you're losing CLs, I'd rather lose it on something that grants access to Divine Power than Human Paragon. Wyrm Wizard and Recaster come to mind. Also too many Fighter levels. And you don't have Master Specialist, which leads very well into Archmage.

EDIT: One trick I've wanted to try out but never really fit into a build is using some way to get at least 1/day Divine Power, then using Archmage to turn it into an SLA, then using Quicken SLA to make it actually useful. Has always turned a bit too expensive to be worth it, but hey, if you're really set on making an Archmage gish...

[morkendi]

Eldrich knight looses a caster lvl. Channel spell is a feat. Great cleave fits in with shadow evocation fireball after they are softened up. And the archmage gish idea, just playing around to see if it doable.

[morkendi]

Forgot shape spell from archmage, drop aoe at my feat and shape around me, then great cleave.

[eggs]

Eldrich knight looses a caster lvl. Channel spell is a feat. Great cleave fits in with shadow evocation fireball after they are softened up. And the archmage gish idea, just playing around to see if it doable.
Archmage gishes are totally doable. Fighter 2/Wizard 6/Eldritch Knight 10/Archamage 2 is pretty much the default core gish (BA 16/CL 17, a few useful abilities on top).

On Eldritch Knight losing a caster level, it doesn't lose any more CL than your Fighter dips, and it opens 9 levels of full BA/CL. If you're throwing CL away, it's a much better place to do it.

If Channel Spell is either that 3.0 Alderac feat or WotC's Smiting Spell, that's cool, but it won't work with Shadow Evocation (it's touch spells only), so it won't work with Great Cleave at all. And Shadow blasting spells are super-unreliable, so you probably don't want to mess with them (they allow two saves and SR and have to get around two layers of immunities and resistances).

EDIT:
And I'm not sure if you've missed this, but Great Cleave doesn't work with spells at all (you aren't casting spells with a weapon, and you don't have an attack roll for the Cleave attack to reuse).

[morkendi]

I like the abjurent champ abilities over eldritch knights the free quicken and such on abjur spells plus bonus to ac, attack, and such. Great cleave is after spells for normal combat after mobs are softened up, but not needed. Could go with something else. If the wizard plays smart, you would get a lot of time just swinging a sword after you blow them up first. The channel spell is to deliver touch spells like shivering touch, ray enfeeble, etc..

[morkendi]

My bad, when i saw channel spell on d&d wiki, i saw open game content, but it was attached to net book of feats. Would have to go with smiting spell or such.

Also, only 2 levels of fighter in build, when it says fighter 2, that means it is when i took 2nd lvl.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Archmage is pretty worthless, considering you can get the feat Extraordinary Spell Aim and completely forget Mastery of Shaping. A Gish shouldn't be casting AoEs anyway except for crowd controls, but it's useful for AMF.

Human Paragon 1/ Fighter 1/ Wizard 2/ Human Paragon +2/ Spellsword 1/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Eldritch Knight 4/ X 4. As long as those last four levels (which could appear earlier in the build) give you +4 levels of casting and +2 BAB, you'll have 9th level spells and +16 BAB at 20th. You can put Incantatrix 4 between Spellsword and Abjurant Champion, which is probably the most powerful gish you could possibly make, and you can use the Otyugh Hole to get Iron Will without spending a feat on it. You could put Paragnostic Apostle 2 before EK, and Archmage 2 after EK, but Archmage's feat prerequisites do not agree with Gish feat choices. You could put Divine Oracle before EK for Evasion and Uncanny Dodge, use the Frog God's Fane to get its feat prerequisite without spending a feat on it. If you use fractional BAB you could use Incantatrix 3 and Paragnostic Apostle 1, or throw in a single level of Mindbender.

[darksolitaire]

Build gives access to 9th lvl spells with çl of 21 with practiced spell caster and spell power from arch mage. Total nine feats and some class abilities that work together.

Practiced Spellcaster only boots your caster levels, meaning the numeric variables in spells and how easily they can penetrate spell resistance. It doesn't get you any new spell levels, so your missing out your nines. PSC also can't boost your caster level above your hd.

I'd build something along the lines of Transmuter 6 Swiftblade (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070327) 9 Abjurant Champion 5. Actual nines and bab +17 to boost.

[morkendi]

Practiced Spellcaster only boots your caster levels, meaning the numeric variables in spells and how easily they can penetrate spell resistance. It doesn't get you any new spell levels, so your missing out your nines. PSC also can't boost your caster level above your hd.

I'd build something along the lines of Transmuter 6 Swiftblade (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070327) 9 Abjurant Champion 5. Actual nines and bab +17 to boost.

Caster level is 17 before feats and such, just get into 9th lvl spell. 21 is for resist and such.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Caster level is 17 before feats and such, just get into 9th lvl spell. 21 is for resist and such.

It's not 21 if your character is only level 20, Practiced Spellcaster can't increase your caster level above your total character level (class levels + racial HD).


Also, only 2 levels of fighter in build, when it says fighter 2, that means it is when i took 2nd lvl.

Your build shouldn't even have two Fighter levels if you're using Human Paragon. You should start out either Fighter 2/ Wizard 4/ Spellsword 1, or Fighter 1/ Wizard 2/ Human Paragon 3/ Spellsword 1, both of which are behind by two points of BAB and two levels of spellcasting. From there you can afford to lose one more level of spellcasting and two more points of BAB to get 9ths and +16 BAB at 20th. The only reason to ever put Fighter 2 in a Gish build is if you're going to take Dungeoncrasher, otherwise use the Human Paragon or Elf Paragon starting levels (or dip a level of Warblade if you're not a Human or Elf). If you do get Fighter 2 for Dungeoncrasher, it's to get the spell Melf's Unicorn Arrow in PH2 and use it to bull rush opponents into the ground as it doesn't specify that the effect originates from the caster.

You should never ever have more Wizard levels than you absolutely need to qualify for prestige classes, which means two with Human or Elf Paragon, or four without either of those, or maybe six in a few very specific builds. Too many Wizard levels leaves you with too few HP to risk getting into melee.

Prescience from Diviner is completely worthless. You get to add your Int bonus to a d20 roll 2/day at Wizard 5, in exchange for losing your bonus spell slots for specializing. You could take Arcane Strike and spend those bonus spell slots to get your spell level as an attack bonus for an entire round, plus bonus damage on every attack. You could spend those bonus spell slots on any number of divination spells that gives you an even higher bonus to a given d20 roll. Plus it forces you to include too many levels of Wizard in your build.

Your two other lost points of BAB can be pretty much any full casting prestige classes. You can get four levels of a poor BAB class like Incantatrix, Divine Oracle, Paragnostic Apostle, Archmage, Master Specialist, etc. You could get two levels in each of two such classes. You could take up to four levels in a medium BAB class like Sacred Exorcist or Ruathar. If you use fractional BAB then you have even more options, but just as long as you don't lose any more caster levels and miss no more than two points of BAB to pick up as many useful class features as you can get, you'll be fine.

You can use both EK and Abjurant Champion, they're not exclusive of each other. If you don't like EK, use Knight Phantom (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050706a&page=4) instead but you'll be spending a feat to qualify. That's your one more lost caster level, either EK or Knight Phantom. You should definitely be including Abjurant Champion 5, the rest of the build can be filled up by EK or KP levels until you get to 20th.

That's either Human Paragon 1/ Fighter 1/ Wizard 2/ Human Paragon +2/ Spellsword 1, or Fighter 2/ Wizard 4/ Spellsword 1, then Abjurant Champion 5, and your last eight levels can lose two BAB and one level of spellcasting. I'd recommend Incantatrix 4/ Eldritch Knight 4.

[morkendi]

It's not 21 if your character is only level 20, Practiced Spellcaster can't increase your caster level above your total character level (class levels + racial HD).

But spell power from archmage does. The 3 high archane i would choose are eldrich flame, master of shapes, and spell power. The practiced caster only giving 3.

Not playing this, but if i did, i would use the being batman guide for wizards with every save or suck spell i could get then hack them down after. This allows him to function somewhat without a tank.

[darksolitaire]

Caster level is 17 before feats and such, just get into 9th lvl spell. 21 is for resist and such.

I counted Fighter 2 as two levels of fighter, my bad.

[morkendi]

If i went strait gish, it would be fighter 1/ elf paragon3/ wiz 2/spellsword 1/ inchantrix 5/ abg champ 5/ eldrch knight 4. Lvls not in order. I was just playing with the archmage idea cause i am home sick. Just thinking about the guy in armor with a great sword saying i'm an arch mage when asked what he can do for the party......

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Any character can claim to be anything he wants, classes don't exist in-character. If you get (nearly) full Wizard spellcasting and at least one trick similar to what Archmage grants (Extraordinary Spell Aim, Energy Substitution, etc.) then you can go around calling yourself "an Archmage" in-character and nobody can say anything about it.

[Alleran]

But spell power from archmage does. The 3 high archane i would choose are eldrich flame, master of shapes, and spell power. The practiced caster only giving 3.
Arcane Fire is one of the weakest Archmage abilities. I'd advise the SLA option instead. For example, a 2/day Irresistible Dance is a 5th level slot and an 8th level slot, as opposed to two 8th level slots, and also doesn't have somatic, material or verbal components (watch out for the XP cost on expensive components, though).