Good follow-up to a Sublime Chord dip?

[Nettlekid]

In a level 21 campaign I'm going to be in, I've decided to go for rule of cool and have built a sort of piratey arcanist in search of primal magic, with a dedicated counterspeller cohort. My build is Bard 7/Viruoso 1/Windwright Captain 2/Sublime Chord 2/Windwright Captain +3/Virtuoso +6. My cohort's build is Duskblade 5/Cold Iron Warrior 5/Apostle of Peace 2/Church Inquisitor 1/Contemplative 1/Dweomerkeeper 6. I'm quite happy with that build, since it does what I want it to do quite well. But looking at that, I'm a bit less happy with the build of my main character, the Bard, just because it doesn't have any real cool niche or abilities. The Windwright Captain (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050803a&page=3) is in there because I wanted an airship, and I really like the flavor, so I want to keep that. But progressing Sublime Chord with Virtuoso just seems a little lackluster. There's no especially cool ability it gets, nor special power it builds up to.

The way I see it, wanting to get in all five levels of Windwright Captain and two levels of Sublime Chord, my best bet is Bard 6/Any Class 2/Windwright Captain 2/Sublime Chord 2/Windwright Captain +3/Caster Progressing Class 6. That "Any Class" can be a caster progressing class, if you want to end up with Caster Progressing Class 8 at the end, but I think it's alright for it to be just about anything because the progression from Windwright Captain can bump up the Bard casting to 3rd level spells. Really, the trickiest thing is getting 8 more caster progression levels after Sublime Chord. Either Windwright Captain +3 and something else 6, or managing to put four levels of Windwright Captain before Sublime Chord, taking your first level of SC at 12, second at 13, last level of Windwright Captain at 14, and then the last 7 levels being a Caster Progression class.

That would look like Bard 5/Any Class 2/Windwright Captain 4/Sublime Chord 2/Windwright Captain +1/Caster Progression Class 7. Does that work? That actually looks pretty good.

Basically, I just need two levels of any class that can fit as a good buildup (it can be a PrC that can be taken using 5 levels of Bard), and then 7 levels of an arcane casting PrC. I just want it to be cool, it doesn't necessarily have to be super-strong because I'm going to have Sublime Chord 10 and using Unfettered Heroism+Wand Surge to cast spells from staves for free, so that's kind of taken care of. I'd like something that has little tricks and just...cool stuff. Either something that's cool and piratey/sailory themed (or at least can be made to work with the fluff and flavor, which admittedly could be just about anything), or just...I dunno, hit me. Don't suggest something like Incantatrix, because it's just kind of boring and known to be so cheesy. I was looking at Anima Mage actually, because it gets a slew of interesting abilities from the Vestiges and is pretty strong, but I don't know if I like the nongood element of it. *shrug* Anyway, taking suggestions.

[mregecko]

I really want a way to make this work with Swiftblade, but I can't figure one out that doesn't lose too many caster levels :-(

[mregecko]

Other potential strong, full-caster, fun, and useful full-casty PrC's I can think of...

Fatespinner (rerolls!)
Abjurant Champion (who doesn't love gish-in-a-box?)
Unseen Seer (kinda rogue-ish, not really piratey)
Mindbender 1 (what better way to communicate with your whole ship?)

Will keep thinking about it...

[Nettlekid]

I know what you mean, Swiftblade's pretty awesome. I have made a Sublime Chord/Swiftblade build before, I think, which got full Sublime Chord casting by level 22, but because I'm being quite insistent on the Windwright Captain here, it doesn't quite work. Which is a pity, because Swiftblade is one of my favorite PrCs.

I really can't find anything good. I may end up staying with Virtuoso, just because it fits.

By the way, does anyone have a clever idea of how I can wield about five staves and swap between them effectively? I've got a Quiver of Ehlonna for carrying them, and Least Crystals of Return on all of them for Quick Draw, but I can still only hold two at a time. Three if I wore a Casting Glove. But I don't want a Casting Glove. Any thoughts?

EDIT: As for your other comments, Fatespinner's okay, but too little bang for its buck. The most it gets are a couple of 1/day abilities and a few +1s to DCs, which would easily be wasted. I dunno, not impressive or cool enough.

Abjurant Champion is pretty neat, but I don't see myself as being very gishy, nor will I use many Abjuration spells to Extend or Quicken. And because of Sublime Chord, my CL is really high, so the BAB as CL just wouldn't do anything.

Unseen Seer is actually quite good, since I could use those two Any Levels for Rogue and Spellthief or something, to get the Sneak Attack prereq. Unfortunately, the campaign is going to be a Xorvintaal Dragon campaign, most of which is based on a game which is immune to Divinations. So a lot of my special abilities would go to waste, unfortunately.

Mindbender 1 is a nice dip, though like I said, I'd prefer not to go nongood unless there's a big payoff. And I can Shapechange into something with Telepathy, if I need it. Or get my Dweomerkeeper cohort to Permanency a Rary's Telepathic Bond on...everyone.

[Grod_The_Giant]

By the way, does anyone have a clever idea of how I can wield about five staves and swap between them effectively? I've got a Quiver of Ehlonna for carrying them, and Least Crystals of Return on all of them for Quick Draw, but I can still only hold two at a time. Three if I wore a Casting Glove. But I don't want a Casting Glove. Any thoughts?
Duct tape Sovereign Glue?

[eggynack]

My usual preference is war weaver. The build looks something like bard 7/uncanny trickster 1/war weaver 1/virtuoso 1/sublime chord 1/war weaver 4/uncanny trickster 2/virtuoso 3. War weaver advances sublime chord casting, uncanny trickster advances war weaver advancing sublime chord casting, and virtuoso is basically filler. You might be able to stick your odd captaining class into that virtuoso hole. Anyway, the main idea here is war weaver. It lets you become really good at buffing, and that's great with cohorts and such. Moreover, it has a dead casting level, so you get to skip that.

[mregecko]

My usual preference is war weaver. The build looks something like bard 7/uncanny trickster 1/war weaver 1/virtuoso 1/sublime chord 1/war weaver 4/uncanny trickster 2/virtuoso 3. War weaver advances sublime chord casting, uncanny trickster advances war weaver advancing sublime chord casting, and virtuoso is basically filler. You might be able to stick your odd captaining class into that virtuoso hole. Anyway, the main idea here is war weaver. It lets you become really good at buffing, and that's great with cohorts and such. Moreover, it has a dead casting level, so you get to skip that.

Bravo -- I like this, and I like that you get to rid of your dead casting levels before you go into Sublime Chord.

Also, depending on your interpretation of how Uncanny Trickster works with finite-level classes/PrCs, this will allow you to incorporate spells of a higher level than normal into your weave.

Nifty. I may yoink this in the future :-)

-- Mr

[Nettlekid]

Hmm, War Weaver is interesting. I plan to use Bloodline Levels which'll make 5 levels of War Weaver count as 8, which is quite good, but I've never really figured out how to use it effectively, since I prefer to use long-term buffs for all day (10 min/level buffs last half the adventuring day for me). What spells would be best to use with War Weaver?

[mregecko]

With 8th war weaver? Some insane options.

Store in your quiescent weaving:
Greater Ironguard
True Seeing
Protection from Spells
Moment of Prescience
Iron Body
Spell Turning
Greater Invis
Mind Blank

That's a hell of a way to start out a fight, releasing those 8 spells as a move action.... And outside of Greater Ironguard, they're all from the PHB. With other splatbooks it becomes even crazier.

And regarding the all day spells that you're talking about.... Sure, it's nice to be able to cast them at the beginning of the day and last the adventuring day.

It's even nicer to cast them once at the beginning of the day, and last for your entire party for the whole adventuring day.

War weaver is an insane PrC for a reason.

EDIT: Iron Body is personal... So replace with an awesome spell from SpC.

EDIT2: Superior Invisibility, why not! Greater Heroism...

-- Mr

[Nettlekid]

Alright, War Weaver has my ear. But that's only five levels. So the build is looking to be (perhaps using Sanctum Spell cheese) Bard 5/War Weaver 2/Windwright Captain 4/Sublime Chord 2/Windwright Captain +1/War Weaver +3/Other PrC 4. What's a lovely short, maybe 5 level PrC to cap this off? I guess Fatespinner fits in pretty well, although I'd prefer something with good skills and skill points to cap it off.

EDIT: Ooh, what about four levels of Spellguard of Silverymoon? I can turn Personal spells into Touch spells with that, so couldn't I then put those into my special tapestry?