Building a Blade Wizard

[Terazul]

Nooo, not a Swordsage, or your standard Duskblade gish dealy, but rather I had the idea of going about playing a Wizard who specializes in weapon spells; There's basically three kinds of those:

1) The "summon x weapon to wield for y rounds" such as Spectral Weapon or Thunderlance.
2) The "summon a weapon and make an instantaneous attack" spells such as Ice Knife or Icelance.
3) And lastly the "summon x weapon to attack on your turn without using your action" spells such as Persistent Blade, Cloud of Knives, or Steeldance.

So! Given that pretty much all of this stuff is direct damage, I already know it's not the most efficient route, but basically I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about making a guy who runs around bashing people in the head with armaments he summoned from the aether. Looking for suggestions, mostly! I already know I'm gonna want to be paying attention to conjuration and transmutation for picks, and have a good idea about a couple spells to pick up (particularly fond of Vortex of Teeth, just make it Vortex of Shuriken or something), but not so much on feats (Extend?) or class choice beyond wanting to stay on the Arcane Spellcasting side of things and away from most homebrew.

Any suggestions?

[Dusk Eclipse]

Given many of those type of spells use your attack bonus, gishing it up isn't a bad idea at all, simply plug in your preferred gish build and change the spell selection a bit.

Extend and Sculpt spell are probably the top choice metamagic feats for you.

[eggs]

Most of the summoned weapon effects have pretty low damage on their own.

Throwing in a Scout or Rogue dip and jumping into Unseen Seer could crank some of those up pretty quickly (Cloud of Knives is the typical example, but it can swing things like Flame Dagger up pretty fast too).

And if you want to be scary with some of these attacks, you might want to look into slapping rider effects onto them. Fell Drain/Weaken/Frighten, Born of Three Thunders, Bladeweave, and so on.

[mattie_p]

Throw in some invisible spell for hilarity. Is there nothing invisible spell doesn't make better?

[BowStreetRunner]

I noticed that the focus for Steeldance is two bladed weapons, such as daggers or longswords. Since you need to have the weapons anyway, you should consider using Whirling Blade too. It doesn't conjure a weapon, but it sounds like it fits the overall concept pretty well.

[marcielle]

Damage per round spells > Extend > Easy metamagic
Maybe Enlarge too if you find yourself with a lot of are spells.

Easy Metamgic is from Dragon Mags but blasting is the least of your DM's worries when he has a wizard at the table.

[Zonugal]

Off the top of my head something like this might be fun to start off with:

Human Human Paragon 1/Wizard 1/Human Paragon 2
Combat Expertise [H], Extend Spell [1st], Martial Weapon Proficiency (Longsword) [HP1], Scribe Scroll [Wiz1], Knowledge Devotion [3rd], Sculpt Spell [HP2]

Choosing Iaijutsu Focus as your Human Paragon special skill you would play a wizard who used magic to augment their capabilities with a blade in addition to throwing out blade-based spells.

[Terazul]

Thanks for the responses so far!

@Dusk Eclipse
Yeah, looking at the idea again going gishy works well (I mostly wanted to avoid the idea of channeling stuff), though honestly not sure which way to go about it :smallconfused: Definitely want a wiz base and not a sorcadin, and definitely want to focus more on the spell aspect of hitting things.

@eggs/Zonugal
Mm. Yeah, with the lowish damage on some of these things (which tends to be spread out across multiple rounds), and the int-focus from wiz, definitely want to include Knowledge Devotion to shore up the damage/for some extra to-hit.

@mattie_p/BowStreetRunner/marcielle
Hah! Whirling Blade is one of my definite faves, and yeah, Steeldance is based on the weapons you use as the focus, so could have them attack and then throw one with a sculpted whirling blade for coolness. Maybe Invisible Spell if I have room for it, but unlikely :smalltongue:

Mmk, so some initial thoughts down, mostly need to comb through SpC for spells though...

[Flickerdart]

I've had this idea a while ago, so feel free to revel in the spoils of my labours:

All unlabelled spells are Core or SpC.

Alphabetically ish:

Black Blade of Disaster (S/W 9)
Blade of Pain and Fear (C3, S/W 3)
Blade Thirst (R3)
Blades of Fire (R1, S/W 1)
Bladeweave (B2, S/W2)
Bodyblades (C2)
Brilliant Blade (C7, D7, S/W6)
Burning Sword (S/W 2)
Critical Strike (B1, S/W1)
Daggerspell Stance (S/W2, D2)
Emerald Flame Fist (S/W7)
Flame Dagger (S/W 2)
Flame Whips (S/W 4)
Howling Chain (S/W6)
Ice Axe (C3)
Ice Gauntlet (C1)
X Sword (P4)
Moon Blade (Moon 3)
Persistent Blade (S/W1)
Ring of Blades (C3)
Sonic Weapon (B2, S/W2)
Spectral Weapon (B4, S/W3)
Spectral Touch (S/W 6)
Steeldance (s/W 3)
Sword of Darkness (S/W 7)
Sword of Deception (S/W 4)
Thunderlance (S/W 4)
Weapon of Energy (C3, S/W 3)
Weapon Shift (B2, S/W1)
Whirling Blade (B2, S/W2)
Mordenkainen's Sword (S/W7)
Flame Blade (D2)
Spiritual Weapon (C2)
Blade of Blood (S/W 1, C1) (PHB2)
Boneblade (C3) (BOVD)
Animate Weapon (S/W 3) (Cmage)
Coat of Arms (S/W 5) (Cmage)
Prismatic Bow (S/W 8) (CMage)


Sorc/Wiz only, by level and with description. Sonorous Hum is in there because it kicks ass for maintaining concentration on multiple magic swords.

S/W
1
Blades of Fire: Swift, Up to 2 weapons deal +1d8 damage
Persistent Blade: Standard, rounds/level, tiny dagger deals 1d4 and flanks
Weapon Shift: Standard, minutes/level, transforms melee weapon into another one
Blade of Blood: Swift, rounds/level, discharge to deal 1d6 ot 3d6 if you take 5 damage
2
Bladeweave: Swift, rounds/level, daze targets
Burning Sword: Standard, minutes/level, adds Flaming Burst
Daggerspell Stance: Standard, rounds/level, gain benefits when fighting with 2 daggers
Flame Dagger: Standard, rounds/level, get a touch attack dagger that deals 1d4+CL
Sonic Weapon: Standard, minutes/level, adds Sonic
Whirling Blade: Standard, throw a weapon
Cloud of Knives: Free attacks
3
Animate Weapon: Concentration+1 round, weapon fights by itself
Blade of Pain and Fear: Rounds/level, 1d6+1 as melee touch and target must save vs frightened for 1d4 rounds
Spectral Weapon: Swift, rounds, conjure a blade you're proficient with and make touch attacks
Steeldance: Standard, rounds/level, two swords attack enemies adjacent to you
Weapon of Energy: Standard, rounds/level, add an X burst property to a weapon
Sonorous Hum: Maintain concentration
4
Thunderlance: Standard, rounds/level, deal damage
Flame Whips: Standard, rounds, your forelimbs turn into 15ft fire whips that deal 6d6
Sword of Deception: rounds/level, sword strikes enemies from your direction with your BAB, deals 1d8 and -2 on saves
5
Coat of Arms: minutes/level, swords give you shield bonus and can be expended to deal 2d6 unerringly
6
Brilliant Weapon: Minutes/level grant a thing brilliant energy
Howling Chain: Rounds/level, 15ft chain makes trip attacks
7
Emerald Flame Fist: Your punch deals 3d6+CL and target catches fire
Sword of Darkness: Deals 1 negative level per hit, same as Sword of Deception
Mordenkainen's Sword: rounds/level, deals 4d6+3 damage
8
Prismatic Bow: +1 longbow that also shoots one of each prismatic effects
9
Black Blade of Disaster: Concentration duration, Disintegrate in sword form


And some strategies:

1-2: Persistent Blade flanks with you, use Critical Hit or Blades of Blood to augment damage before you get SA
3-4: Flame Dagger replaces your regular weapon, I guess you can Weapon Shift and use the touch attacks to PA for lots
5-6: Switch to Blade of Pain and Fear, use Steeldance and Persistent Blade simultaneously, Sonorous Hum to use Animate Weapon and keep casting
7-10: **** yeah Thunderlance, or Flame Whips, Sword of Deception added to your repertoire of free attacks
11-12: Howling Chain added to your repertoire of free attacks, Spectral Touch if you feel like neg levels
13-16: Mordy's Sword and Sword of Darkness both bring the hurt for free, Emerald Flame Fist sets things on fire
17+: Quickened Sonorous Hum into Black Blade, then whatever.


You'll notice that 8th and 9th level spells aren't terribly useful for you except for metamagic, so Swiftblade comes highly recommended. Stop time, sprout a few blades, and then cut into the enemy.

[Eldariel]

Certainly you could also use Telekinesis. Shoot infinite swords at people (you need to conjure them up or keep some around of course; luckily neither is a problem for a Wizard). Since some of these effects use BAB, a low cost way of increasing your BAB such as Abjurant Champion and Sacred Exorcist may also be interesting.

[Flickerdart]

If you want Telekinesis, a Psion/Slayer is a better way to go - they can augment their weight cap to higher than a Wizard, and have the lovely Control Body and Solicit Psicrystal that let them actually fight while sustaining a barrage of telekinetically powered swords.

[jaybird]

Swiftblade is HIGHLY recommended, as above.

[Terazul]

Hmm. Beyond Swiftblade, are there really any other good Gishy PrCs that are good beyond a one or two level dip for this sorta thing?

[LeshLush]

If you want to be a little bit off the wall, the Wu Jen spell list has bunch of these types of spells.

[Tokuhara]

My suggestions:

Be a Neraphim
Go Swiftblade and Eldritch Knight straight from Wizard (Proficiency in all Martial Weapons from Outsider type)
???
Profit

[Boci]

Damage per round spells > Extend > Easy metamagic
Maybe Enlarge too if you find yourself with a lot of are spells.

Widen, not enlarge. Enlarge just increases the range.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Don't forget about Melf's Unicorn Arrow, which is amazing if you go with a standard gish build with Fighter 2 for Dungeoncrasher.

You could use multiple castings of Spiritual Weapon, especially with an added threat like Fell Frighten or even Fell Drain. You could even cast those under Invisibility without being revealed. Arcane Disciple for the War domain would give you Spiritual Weapon, and you could get a custom Runestaff with that on it (since it's on your spell list) and be able to cast it an additional three times per day.

Persistent Spell will make Cloud of Knives and similar spells a lot more efficient, and again you could add a carrier effect like Fell Frighten or Fell Drain.

You could go Archivist with TWF and Gloves of the Balanced Hand, and use Fell Drain Spell and DMM: Persist with Ice Axe and Flame Blade.

[Deadline]

The Arcane Disciple feat to pick up the War domain for access to Blade Barrier, Magic Weapon, and Spiritual Weapon in it might not be a bad choice either.

Edit: I see that the poster above me already recommended it for Spiritual Weapon, but the suggestion still stands for the others.

[Sponson]

I know you specifically wanted wizard, but if you wanted to do a little cheese build you could go sorcerer and pump your charisma up.

Grab Whirling Blade and Steeldance.

Get as many Stunning-Surge [MiC] greatswords as you can, if you have a Charisma bonus of +7, each stunning-surge greatsword can stun 8 times a day with a Fort DC save of [10+1/2 character level+CHA mod], so at level 6 the Fort DC save is 20.

Steeldance and Whirling Blade uses your charisma mod to hit and damage stuff. If you manage to pack 3 greatswords that's 24 times you can stun a day.

Since Steeldance gives you two attacks without requiring any actions, you can walk in and stun things as much as you like while your rogue has his way. Or anyone really, since the monsters are all stunned.