Spellcasting captain

[Virdish]

I'm building a PC for an upcoming spelljammer campaign (3.5 rendition thereof) and I am building the captain. I have two ideas in mind. One is kind of business as usual for me since it is a psionic character. The other is a swift hunter build with sword of the arcane order. In the first case I am pretty sure that thew are no sea/pirate themed prc's for it. However the other side opens up the option of trying to find a spellcasting prc. Just wondering if anyone knew of one.

[HalfQuart]

It's been decades since I've played spelljammer, so not sure how compatible the stuff would be, but you might be able to find something good in Strormwrack. There are three casting PrCs: Sea Witch (8/10), Stormcaster (9/10), and Wavekeeper (9/10). But with the possible exception of Stormcaster, they seem pretty water-focused. Alternatively Legendary Captain is a pretty strong PrC and would be quite easy to adapt, but of course doesn't advance spellcasting.

[A_S]

Windwright Captain (Explorer's Handbook) is cool, but it's Eberron specific and designed for airships, not spelljammers. It could maybe work with some adaptation, though.

If you're going psionic, you could consider using Thrallherd to get a badass crew. The class is pretty easy to abuse badly (since it's basically Leadership: The Class), but if you stuck to thematic spelljammer crew coolness instead of "haha now I have 3 characters suck it DM," it could work.

What kinds of "sea captain" traits do you want your character to have? Are you going for the "inspiring leader" stuff, or do you want a particularly swashbuckle-y combat style, or just Profession (sailor) as a class skill, or what?

[Virdish]

As far as feel I am mostly trying to do the inspiring leader with access to profession (sailor). As far as feeling like a swashbuckler... it would be a plus but pulling that off on a spellcasting chassis I know is going to be difficult without giving up a few too many caster levels (especially since I'm already a partial caster anyways.) I was definitely going for thrallherd if I do the psionic build because thrallherd is just win. I thought of going full caster and doing something like sorcerer with the dragon blood sub levels to qualify for chameleon. Doing a warlock build also popped into my mind but it just doesn't seem to fit right. Beguiler jumps out as being a strong choice though I would have to support that with a rogue dip first level for skill points.

Other thing that needs to be noted is I'm playing a homebrew race that is cha heavy so anything that has cha synergy is nice.

Edit: sadly windwright won't work as DM has specifically said no dragonmarks. Most other setting specifics are open (one of my crew is a warforged artificer.)

Edit 2: I looked at legendary captain and loved it... Except for the whole no spellcasting progression.

[A_S]

So, it's pretty easy to make cha-heavy gishes based on Sublime Chord; with a little work, you can even get pretty good Bardic Music (i.e., inspirational leadership) out of them without giving up 9th level spellcasting. Snowflake Wardance makes for pretty good swashbuckling. Mechanically, that's a very different character than the SotAO Swift Hunter, but it might do what you want it to.

[Virdish]

Looking at Sublime Chord I don't think I would take it past 2nd level. I looked at virtuoso and it seems fun but then there are always other possibilities. I thought about sneaking in a level of mindbender for mindsight (obviously progressing SC) My DM approved the use of Chaos Magic feat from dragon compendium and I think there is a vest that also bumps bardic music so my bardic music wont hurt too bad. I'll still probably grab virtuoso for it's bardic music stuff.

[A_S]

Sublime Chord typically isn't taken past 2nd level on its own, you just dip it for better spellcasting and then advance it with other stuff.

e.g., Bard 7/Crusader 3/Sublime Chord 2/Virtuoso 2/Abjurant Champion 5/Spellsword 1

...gets 16 BAB, 9th level spells, and passable Bardic Music (9th level, so 14th for +3 with a Strongheart Vest). You can get more Bardic Music out of it if you're willing to dip Druid to get into Fochlucan Lyrist, but that's a different build.

You also don't have to start off heavily invested into Bard if you don't care about Inspire Courage. Beguiler 4/Bard 1 with Versatile Spellcaster qualifies you for Sublime Chord, and you can use levels 6-10 for any full BAB class you like, then finish off the last 10 levels with Sublime Chord 2/Abjurant Champion 5/Spellsword 3.

Anyway, stuff to consider.

[Larkas]

Another pretty easy build is Bard 9/ Virtuoso 1/ Sublime Chord 2/ Virtuoso +8. Inspire Courage optimization is heavily recommended!