Still spell for a gish?

[silverwolfer]

How important or unimportant is the still spell metamagic feat for a heavy armored arcane bringer of doom?

[ksbsnowowl]

How important or unimportant is the still spell metamagic feat for a heavy armored arcane bringer of doom?

Depends. There are ways to drop your ASF to 0 if all of 3.5 is available.

Knight Phantom (Five Nations) requires still spell, but then grants you the ability to ignore ASF in light armor.

If you are really looking to go full plate + wizard Gish, it might be worth it to head into something that allows you to cast in light armor, then take Battlecaster, and use mithril full plate. Would be a better use of your resources than preparing half your spells with a level penalty.

You can also make a Gish that focuses on spells with no somatic components. There's quite a few good ones.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Still Spell is absolutely unnecessary.

Any modern gish will use Abjurant Champion, and can cast Greater Luminous Armor and Shield to get the AC equivalent of +5 Full Plate and a +5 Tower Shield, but without any drawbacks, max dex, encumbrance, etc., basically for free. No need to wear any armor at all except maybe in the very early levels, at which you should have a reach weapon and someone to stand behind. You can wear light or medium armor and cast spells with no somatic components until you can cast 2nd level spells and afford a Lesser Rod of Extend.

If you insist on playing an armored gish, you can take the Runesmith prestige class in Races of Stone to remove all somatic components from every spell you cast, or you can make a psionic gish which never suffers ASF, or make a divine caster of some sort. No reason to waste a feat and higher level spell slots using Still Spell.

[Vaz]

Twilight Mithril Githcraft Armour with Thistledown padding, Mithril Dastana, Mithril Chahar-aina all say no.

[Lonely Tylenol]

+1 Twilight Mithral Chain Shirt has an ACF of 0. Mithral Chahar-Aina has an ACF of 0. Mithral Dastana has an ACF of 0.

That's +7 AC (enchantable up to +11 AC by upgrading the armor to +5) with 0 ACF, assuming you didn't have a means of mitigating the CON penalty of Greater Luminous Armor, which is otherwise the superior option. (Otherwise, you are merely getting +1 Twilight Mithral Chain/+1 Mithral Dastana/+1 Mithral Chahar-Aina with a lot of different cheap enhancements on them for the benefit of having armor enhancements, not for actual armor value.)

The Shield spell is better than an actual shield unless you get a set of costly enhancements to go with it (one of which is Animated). This is especially true if you're an Abjurant Champion for 5 levels, and, well... Gish. I need not say any more.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

....assuming you didn't have a means of mitigating the CON penalty of Greater Luminous Armor, which is otherwise the superior option.

It's not a Con penalty, its a sacrifice which deals Str damage when the spell ends, and you can get a Rod of Bodily Restoration (MIC) for 3,100 gp and guarantee that you can immediately cure that Str damage as soon as it happens, every time it happens.

[Vaz]

Or Bind Naberius for costlessness.

[Lonely Tylenol]

It's not a Con penalty, its a sacrifice which deals Str damage when the spell ends, and you can get a Rod of Bodily Restoration (MIC) for 3,100 gp and guarantee that you can immediately cure that Str damage as soon as it happens, every time it happens.

I'm sorry, recalling from memory, posting from phone, spoke quickly.

I'm aware of the Rod of Bodily Restoration, but I meant that if, for whatever reason, you aren't able to get a hold of any means of restoring the damage, there is still good ASF-free armor available.