[3.5] Trying to make a Channeling Master

[IserLuick]

Hi everyone!

I thought of a pretty crazy idea for an experimental build, I tried to make it happen and I would like to share it with you and see your oppinions, as I saw that this build can have pretty nice options.

I wanted to make a character that fully specializes in channeling spells through its weapon frequently, and I thought about trying out the following multiclassing:

Duskblade 3/Sorcerer 3/Cleric 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Ordained Champion 3/Spellsword 5

This looks veeeeery messy, but here are some advantages that I could see on this build, here are the class features that the character gets on the level advancement:

Level 1 .- Duskblade: Arcane attunement, armored mage (light)
Level 2 .- Duskblade: Combat Casting
Level 3 .- Duskblade: Arcane Channeling
Level 4 .- Sorcerer: Summon familiar
Level 5 .- Sorcerer:
Level 6 .- Sorcerer:
Level 7 .- Cleric: Turn or Rebuke Undead, Deity: Heironeos or Hextor with War Domain and any second domain.
Level 8 .- Abjurant Champion: Abjurant armor, Extended abjuration
Level 9 .- Abjurant Champion: Swift abjuration
Level 10.- Abjurant Champion:
Level 11.- Abjurant Champion: Arcane boost
Level 12.- Abjurant Champion: Martial Arcanist
Level 13.- Ordained Champion: Bonus domain, Combat feats, Continued advancement, modified spontaneous casting
Level 14.- Ordained Champion: Diehard, Smite
Level 15.- Ordained Champion: Channel spell (Su), Divine bulwark
Level 16.- Spellsword: Ignore spell failure 10%
Level 17.- Spellsword: Bonus feat
Level 18.- Spellsword: Ignore spell failure 15%
Level 19.- Spellsword: Channel Spell (Sp) 3/day
Level 20.- Spellsword: Ignore spell failure 20%

There are only 3 levels in which the character doesn't get any ability or feature. It gets to +17 BAB and caster lvl 11 (sorcerer) at level 20, being able to cast some 5th level spells and, thanks to the Martial Arcanist class feature, it can cast them like a 17 level sorcerer.

I don't know if the Wizard is better for the build. I considered that it's better to cast more quantity of spells without 6th level spells than being able to cast just one 6th level spell at level 20.

The feat requirements are fulfilled with the class features; for example, the Duskblade gives the Combat Casting for the Abjurant Champion and, if you take the War Domain for the Cleric, its granted powers can meet the feat requirement of the Ordained Champion.

Using the Combat feats class feature of the Ordained Champion, you can exchange the granted powers of the two Cleric domains besides the War Domain (all the granted powers of the Heironeous or Hextor domains are not useful at all for this character), and you would get at least 2 extra fighter feats.

That gives us a total of 10 free feats (11 if its a Human), and you don't have to use any of them to fill a requirement for a prestige class at all.

As the Turn or Rebuke Undead of the cleric is not so useful for this character, it can do 4 Smites a day.

This character gets the 3 forms of channeling magic through a weapon:

The Duskblade's Arcane Channeling: Can deliver touch spells with a weapon, and it should be able to hold the charge of these spells so it can make good use of multi-touch spells like Chilling Touch, Corrosive Grasp and Storm Touch from Magic of Eberron, for example. I don't know if these spells can be delivered several times on the same target with a full attack (with touch attacks or the arcane channeling), If you know about this, I would apreciate it if you share your knowledge.

The Ordained Champion's Channel Spell (the 3.5 revised version): As a supernatural ability, it can channel any spell that has a creature or creatures as target of the spell, and it can use this as many times as it wants.

The Spellsword's Channel Spell: As a spell-like ability, it can channel any spell through its weapon, 3 times a day.

The Smiting Spell feat is completely shadowed by the Duskblade's Arcane Channeling.

It gets a fairly good HP because almost all of the classes have at least d8 hit dice. It also gets a 19 Will base save, a 14 Fortitude base save and a 5 Reflexes base save at level 20.

It dosen't get a crazy dependancy on ability scores, it just needs 12 Wisdom to cast the cleric spells, 11 of Int to cast the duskblade spells and the main ability scores to boost would be Strength, Charisma and Constitution.

Well, what do you think of this build? It seems pretty cool to me.

Also, what would be the best spells to make full use of the channeling ability of the Ordained Champion?

If this build is bad, is there any other way to use many channeling abilities?

Thanks a lot for your attention! :smallsmile:

If I made any spelling error, tell me and I'll fix it.

[WhatBigTeeth]

I get the gimmick of grabbing channeling from every source, but this build spreads itself incredibly thin. It might be strong enough to get by in most campaigns, but it's pretty conspicuously losing efficiency to keep retreading its gimmick - you could power it up by picking any one of its three casting classes, and focusing on it specifically. You'd still have 2-3 modes of channeling on any of them, which in most cases is more than enough.

[IserLuick]

Ok!

Then, I think it's better to have the Duskblade's Arcane Channeling and the Spellsword's Channel Spell, because you can get those with arcane spellcasters, and it would be kinda hard to get the Ordained Champion's Channel Spell and the Spellsword's Channel Spell together... let's see...

It would be better to use this?

Duskblade 3/Sorcerer 7/Abjurant Champion 5/Spellsword 5

It gets arcane channeling, +16 BAB bonus and 7th level spells at level 20 (lvl 15 of Sorcerer casting).

I don't know if the Wizard is better for this, it would get 8th level spells at level 20, scribe scroll, an extra feat, and it needs the same ability score to cast as the duskblade. It would be something like this:

Duskblade 3/Wizard 7/Abjurant Champion 5/Spellsword 5

To combine the Ordained Champion's Channel Spell and the Spellsword's Channel Spell, I think of something like this:

Cleric 4/Ordained Champion 3/Sorcerer 3/Abjurant Champion 5/Spellsword 5

It gets +17 BAB and 5th level spell at level 20 (lvl 11 of Sorcerer casting).

I don't think it's a good idea to get the Duskblade's Arcane Channeling and the Ordained Champion's Channel Spell together, as the Spellsword's Channel Spell is very very powerful if used with the proper spells.

What do you think?

[dysprosium]

needs more Bladesinger

[thethird]

And what about...

Duskblade 6 / Warrior Skald 1 / Suel Arcanamarch 4 / Sublime Chord 1 / Abujarant champion 5 / Raumathari Battlemage 3

It gets 17 BAB and 9th lvl spells

Also has channel arcane spells (duskblade), dispelling strike (a channeled dispel), and channel spells (raumathari battlemage)

[WhatBigTeeth]

Improved Unarmed Strike and Smiting Spell are similar to Duskblade 3, but without wasting that many levels.

But I'd seriously just go Cleric/Ordained Champion 3/Full Casting Cleric PrCs on this thing, grabbing DMM: Smiting Spell and a spell-storing weapon along the way. If something survives three simultaneous channels, there's something going wrong that more channeling just won't fix (but higher-level spells probably will).

[IserLuick]

And what about...

Duskblade 6 / Warrior Skald 1 / Suel Arcanamarch 4 / Sublime Chord 1 / Abujarant champion 5 / Raumathari Battlemage 3

It gets 17 BAB and 9th lvl spells

Also has channel arcane spells (duskblade), dispelling strike (a channeled dispel), and channel spells (raumathari battlemage)

*EDIT*: I found out that that build can't be done, you need 9 ranks in the Perform skill and the duskblade doesn't have it; also, you need 13 ranks in listen and 9 ranks in Perform to take he Sublime Chord prestige class, and you can't put that quantity of ranks because only the Warrior Skald has the Perform Skill and the Duskblade doesn't have the Listen skill.


Improved Unarmed Strike and Smiting Spell are similar to Duskblade 3, but without wasting that many levels.

But I'd seriously just go Cleric/Ordained Champion 3/Full Casting Cleric PrCs on this thing, grabbing DMM: Smiting Spell and a spell-storing weapon along the way. If something survives three simultaneous channels, there's something going wrong that more channeling just won't fix (but higher-level spells probably will).

Sure, Improved Unarmed Strike and Smiting Spell can channel touch spells in a melee attack, but the Smiting Spell feat doesn't let you hold the charge of a multitouch spell because it discharges from the weapon.

The Improved Unarmed Strike feat can do some aditional damage besides the spell, but the spell discharges after you make the attack, so you can't hold the charge of a multitouch spell either.

The Duskblade's Arcane Channeling, by RAW, can allow to hold the charge of the spell, as the description specifies that you "deliver" the spell, you don't discharge it, as long as you don't cast it as part of a full-attack (duskblade 13); in that case, the spell efectively discharges. (I asked some questions to see if this is correct, you can see a little thread here: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=9363.new#new)

Then, if you hold the charge of a multitouch spell (like Chilling Touch, Corrosive Grasp from Magic of Faerûn or Storm Touch from Magic of Eberron) with Arcane Channeling, on the following turns, you should be able to do full-attacks and deal the damage of the weapon an deliver the spell with each attack.

I think that's a pretty decent thing for 3 character levels (well, I'm talking specifically about the Storm Touch, a full attack with that has to be awesome).

Well, at least that's what I understand of the rules so far :smalltongue: