Two-handed weapon fighting as wizard?

[faircoin]

With 28 point buy: str 16, dex 10, con 14, int 16, wis 8, cha 8

Human. Human feat: eschew materials (no arguments; I want this one).

I keep looking through a bunch of feats I'd take were I a fighter, but none of them look very attractive with 1/2 BAB. Any suggestions?

[Psyren]

Why not Magus? Then you can wear armor (compensating for your low Dex) and still put that Int to use.

[GreenETC]

Why not Magus? Then you can wear armor (compensating for your low Dex) and still put that Int to use.
Or if you're not playing Pathfinder, you can do the 3.5 "equivalent" Duskblade. Gives you medium armor, martial weapons, spells, and full BaB.

From there you can either go straight Duskblade or multiclass into Wizard to get better touch spells. I'd recommend Versatile Spellcaster as your other feat, since it lets you turn 0-lvl spells into 1sts.

[Psyren]

Yeah my bad, I guess I assumed PF there :smalltongue:

[faircoin]

Wizard because I want full-progression casting.

I'm willing to do dirty, degrading dumb things to make this work.

[Raendyn]

also duskblade is like magus but not PF.

from races of stone check runesmith PrC if you want to stick to wizard.

Also, eldritch knight, abjurant champion and Whats that prestige from Eberron that advances casting and makes your weapon briliant energy class lvls rounds/ day?

Edit: knight phantom it is. nice substitute for EKnight.

[atomicwaffle]

*cough*

tenser's transformation

*cough*

[Norin]

One suggestion: Get some way to persist wraithstrike and hit touch AC all day.

That could help your poor attack bonus alot.

[Krobar]

I would take the Arcane Disciple feat, and choose a god with the War Domain. That way you can pick up Divine Power for added strength, constitution, and improved BAB.

Also take Extend Spell and Persistent Spell. That way you can persist Divine Power later on.

I would also recommend Power Attack and Arcane Strike.

That takes care of 5 feats.

For arcane spells be sure to take Wraithstrike. And I also like Greater Magic Weapon so you never have to worry about not having a good sword - you can just enchant one!


Another feat I've always liked that may fit what you're looking to do, is Smiting Spell, which would enable you to channel touch spells through your sword, doing both the normal sword damage, and whatever the spell does.

[faircoin]

Arcane Disciple... Arcane strike... Smiting Spell

Thanks for bringing these up. They look very interesting.

[Eldariel]

You need:
1) Somatic Weaponry from Complete Mage to cast while holding a weapon in each hand.
2) TWF-feats for obvious reasons.
3) Some good sources of bonus to hit:
- Mentioned Wraithstrike is a good one as is Greater Magic Weapon, Polymorph, Greater Invisibility, etc.
4) Pounce (Lion's Charge is a Ranger-spell but some ways to get it; could also use Swift Action movement á la Quickened Benign Transposition with your [invisible] familiar or Travel Devotion or whatever; Barbarian-dip in an Eldritch Knight build would work too)
5) Preferably some Gish PRCs or way to persist Divine Power. Getting Divine Power is easy enough through Arcane Disciple (War, Pride, Competition & Orc Domains all have it). Persisting it without superhigh level spell slots is a bit harder; Incantatrix [Player's Guide to Faerun], Spelldancer [Magic of Faerun], Tainted Scholar [Heroes of Horror] or some such is needed and they're all fairly extreme power classes. Without BAB your To Hit will suffer tremendously and you will lack iterative attacks (which Gishes can make hit vs. many opponents) so you definitely do want them.

Gish PRCs include Abjurant Champion [Complete Mage], Eldritch Knight/Knight Phantom [Five Nations], Swiftblade [here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070327)], etc. Basically classes that give you full BAB and good casting. Generally you can get 19th level casting and 17 BAB by level 20 (e.g. Wizard 5/Eldritch Knight 10/Abjurant Champion 5 with Militia-feat [Player's Guide to Faerun] or Barbarian 1/Wizard 5/Eldritch Knight 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight +8).

[Srasy]

A focused specialist transmuter orc would best I think though human would work then just cast fist of stone and enlarge person and go to town with your 1d8+10 or 1d8+13 (if orc) slam attack you are a better barbarian then the barbarian you just are a tad squishy then you later at level can alter self which gives you more damage through various spells but most importantly alter self which allows you to turn into a varag and hit and run decimate people then at later levels you have polymorph and troll shape just for the most part try not to get hit

[faircoin]

Gish PRCs include Abjurant Champion [Complete Mage], Eldritch Knight/Knight Phantom [Five Nations], Swiftblade [here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070327)], etc. Basically classes that give you full BAB and good casting. Generally you can get 19th level casting and 17 BAB by level 20 (e.g. Wizard 5/Eldritch Knight 10/Abjurant Champion 5 with Militia-feat [Player's Guide to Faerun] or Barbarian 1/Wizard 5/Eldritch Knight 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight +8).

Abjurant Champion looks very solid. Thanks for bringing it up. All of your advice was very useful, but this one especially.

EDIT

Also, I've never really played in a campaign before where I felt comfortable going Incantatrix or Tainted Scholar. I mean... you know.

[Eldariel]

Ah, two-handed; sorry I somehow thought you wrote two-weapon fighting. Yeah, that's much better; you don't need Somatic Weaponry (letting go of your weapon with one hand to cast is a free action) nor do you need Two-Weapon Fighting feats. Instead, just take Power Attack and go to town. Arcane Strike and company are still useful of course, as is Quicken Spell.

I suggest some kind of an Abjurant Champion-based build with a bunch of levels in Wizard into Abjurant Champion. That tends to work the best.

[Vaz]

Arcane Disciple (Competition)
Power Attack
Iron Will
Any Metamagic Feat
Leap Attack chain

[Namfuak]

I don't know if you want to avoid losing caster levels at all costs, but an oft-suggested start for a gish build is (Full BAB) 2/(Wizard/Sorc) 4/Spellsword 1 [Complete Warrior]/Abjurant Champion 5. If ToB is in play, you can do some pretty sick combos with warblade/wizard/jade phoenix mage.

[Ekul]

If you're human, consider Chameleon. It's pretty nifty all around.

[herrhauptmann]

I don't know if you want to avoid losing caster levels at all costs, but an oft-suggested start for a gish build is (Full BAB) 2/(Wizard/Sorc) 4/Spellsword 1 [Complete Warrior]/Abjurant Champion 5. If ToB is in play, you can do some pretty sick combos with warblade/wizard/jade phoenix mage.

This is a good route to go, even without tome of battle.
Assuming you want to maximize your combat potential the mundane way (best way is by boosting your spells though)
Feats: Power attack. Then either combat brute or shocktrooper. In either case, I'd also take leap attack.
With abjurant champion 5, you can arguably start taking the mageslayer feats. Your CL will be equal to your bab, rather than at the -4 for mageslayer.

[HunterOfJello]

Wizard 2/Binder 1/Wizard 1/Anima Mage 10

1: Extend Spell
Human Bonus: Eschew Materials
Combat Wizard Bonus: ????
3. Improved Binding
6. Persistent Spell

Use the Combat Wizard ACF from Unearthed Arcane to grant yourself a bonus fighter feat at level 1 in exchange for Scribe Scroll. You can take all sorts of feats for combat related stuff, though Improved Initiative might be the best choice. You won't have many feats available for this build until after level 6.

Once you hit level 9 you'll be able to persist a Wraithstrike spell on yourself or a good Polymorph spell if that's your thing. You can use your vestiges to grant yourself melee combat abilities to do all sorts of things.

At level 3 of this build you'll have access to:
Aym who is great for sundering opponent's items (or attacking objects in general). Leraje who gives you good options for using a bow in combat. Malphas who gives you Invisibility at-will, poison use, and Sudden Strike that doesn't progress very well, but is good at level 3. Ronove who lets you fight like a monk

At level 6 of this build you even get access to Paimon who lets you become a dervish type attacker. You get weapon finesse, a good version of spring attack, whirlwind attack, +4 untyped bonus to dexterity, training and bonus to tumble, proficiency with a rapier and short sword, and uncanny dodge.

~~~~

This is the build I would suggest, though there are plenty of other options available.

[lsfreak]

I think it needs pointed out again you don't need Eschew Materials or Somatic Weaponry, unless something needs them as prereqs. You can freely remove one hand from your weapon while casting and put it back while attacking.

[Taveena]

What I'd suggest is Wizard 5/Warblade 1/Jade Phoenix Mage 10/Abjurant Champion 4. 17th level Wizard casting at 20, BAB 17. With the pouncing maneuver, you're going to fight better than any Fighter can.