Help with an Arcane build

[dchevallier]

My friend is convinced that he wants to be a Arcane caster for our next campaign, but is often irrational in combat and loves to front-line. Is there a way he can fulfill a tankier role as an arcane caster or should he just choose one? It should be noted that he's actually very good about responsibly using spells, he just tends towards poor positioning

[shylocke]

Beguiler from ph2. Armoured illusionist. Or warmage from comp arcane. Warmage if wanting more fighter than sneak.

[Omegas]

If he is new to magic a Bard is a good gateway class to many prestige classes that are both fighters and casters. The limited number of spells means he has more time to get to know the magic system before becoming overwhelmed.

[SPoilaaja]

If you're looking for low optimization, take duskblade and with higher optimization in mind, you should look into wizard/warblade/Abjurant Champion/Jade phoenix mage. And if you don't use ToB or completes, a regular Wizard/Fighter(or barbarian/paladin) into Eldritch Knight from DMG

[Vrock_Summoner]

If you're looking for low optimization, take duskblade and with higher optimization in mind, you should look into wizard/warblade/Abjurant Champion/Jade phoenix mage. And if you don't use ToB or completes, a regular Wizard/Fighter(or barbarian/paladin) into Eldritch Knight from DMG is the worst idea ever

Fixed that for you. Eldritch Knights don't gain new spell levels, just spells per day.

Also, seconding Bard or Duskblade.

[dchevallier]

Tome of Battle is definitely in (My character is a Swordsage/SSN primary stealth/secondary melee). The optimization level of this is mid-high (no cheese, but characters are well built). Any of those ideas could work, I think I'll start running some of these by him.

[Eldariel]

Fixed that for you. Eldritch Knights don't gain new spell levels, just spells per day.

Also, seconding Bard or Duskblade.

What? "From 2nd level on, when a new eldritch knight level is gained, the character gains new spells per day as if she had also gained a level in whatever arcane spellcasting class she belonged to before she added the prestige class. She does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. This essentially means that she adds the level of eldritch knight to the level of whatever other arcane spellcasting class the character has, then determines spells per day and caster level accordingly."

You can't gain new spells as if gaining a new level if you don't get new spell levels.


But ya, normal Wizard can frontline just fine if using enough buffs and persistomancy. Incantatrix [Player's Guide to Faerun] is probably your best bet for early Persistent Spell. Wizard 5/Incantatrix 3 should be able to become invulnerable reasonably easily. Mebbe add War Weaver or some such. Could use Halruaan Elder too.

[SPoilaaja]

Fixed that for you. Eldritch Knights don't gain new spell levels, just spells per day.


I see no mention of not gaining higher level spells. http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/eldritchKnight.htm "This essentially means that she adds the level of eldritch knight to the level of whatever other arcane spellcasting class the character has, then determines spells per day and caster level accordingly." If you become effective level 5 wizard through Eldritch Knight, you get the spells per day of a fifth level wizard, which includes third level spells.

[dchevallier]

But ya, normal Wizard can frontline just fine if using enough buffs and persistomancy. Incantatrix [Player's Guide to Faerun] is probably your best bet for early Persistent Spell. Wizard 5/Incantatrix 3 should be able to become invulnerable reasonably easily. Mebbe add War Weaver or some such. Could use Halruaan Elder too.

We're still deciding whether to use Eberron stuff (for Artificer) or Faerun stuff (for Incantatrix), as it doesn't make sense (fluff-wise) to have both. Currently, it's leaning towards Faerun, but we'll see

[Vrock_Summoner]

What? "From 2nd level on, when a new eldritch knight level is gained, the character gains new spells per day as if she had also gained a level in whatever arcane spellcasting class she belonged to before she added the prestige class. She does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. This essentially means that she adds the level of eldritch knight to the level of whatever other arcane spellcasting class the character has, then determines spells per day and caster level accordingly."

You can't gain new spells as if gaining a new level if you don't get new spell levels..

Actually, yeah, you can. You gain the increased spells per day of later class levels, but you can't actually cast higher-level spells. Or would you like to explain why every other spell advancement PrC in the DMG explicitly mentions "(and spells known, if applicable)" but Eldritch Knight doesn't? Such a thing is further compounded by the fact that WotC pretty much copy-pastes these things; such an edit was pretty clearly intentional. Of course, it could be argued that that just means you need to scribe all your new spells without level-learning them, thus making it potentially circumventable, but that leaves the combo pretty flimsy and overly DM-dependent.

[Particle_Man]

I'm gonna put that in the category of "there might be some technical reason why nonhumanoids with 1 racial HD don't give up that racial hd when taking class levels, but that would be stupid, so they do anyway".

So here, OP, you and your DM have official permission from me and from whatever spiritual powers you believe in, to take the eldritch knight and gain caster levels, spells per day, and spell levels for so doing. :smallsmile:

[Vrock_Summoner]

I'm gonna put that in the category of "there might be some technical reason why nonhumanoids with 1 racial HD don't give up that racial hd when taking class levels, but that would be stupid, so they do anyway".

So here, OP, you and your DM have official permission from me and from whatever spiritual powers you believe in, to take the eldritch knight and gain caster levels for so doing. :smallsmile:

edit: anyhow, my DMG says "This essentially means that she adds the level of eldritch knight to the level of whatever other arcane spellcasting class the character has, then determines spells per day and caster level accordingly."

@edit: and Caster Level is not what you think it is, but I'll concede now.

Forgive my intrusion. Based on my tables I thought I was correcting an uncommon misconception, not being That Guy and RAW-derping about a class that doesn't need nerfing anyway. Forgive me, I was just trying to help, didn't mean to rules-lawyer.

[dchevallier]

Look, Eldritch Knight is pretty much out of the question anyway... it's a poorly executed PrC

[ZamielVanWeber]

It is not amazing, but it is not too terrible. A decent dismount for Abjurant Champion.

[SPoilaaja]

If your friend is going the gish route, remember to snatch 1 level of spellsword, when you hit lvl 2 spells and +4 bab

[Eldariel]

Other easy ways to persist spells include Spelldancer [Magic of Faerun], Tainted Scholar [Heroes of Horror], Anima Mage [Tome of Magic], a bunch of less remarkable FR PRCs & co. This is the most casteriffic solution.

A less casteriffic solution would be Otherworldly/Militia [Player's Guide to Faerun] into Abjurant Champion and another Gish PRC (Sacred Exorcist, Knight Phantom, Eldritch Knight, what-have-you), but honestly, that's a lot of casting potential wasted and persisting Divine Power accomplishes the same goal anyways. Plus persisting spells leads to way superior defense compared to a couple of points of hit die and BAB (to the point where the HD and BAB are completely meaningless).

[Hangwind]

Have you considered Fleshwarper from Lords of Madness? They lose a caster level, but can be awesomely fun to play!

[nedz]

Not Beguiler — that's a "I never do anyone any damage" sort of class.

He should build a Gish. The Duskblade class from PH2 is an easy way to do this, but there are a huge number of more complex character builds which achieve the same effect.

Duskblade handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=525).

And a couple of Gish (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8786) handbooks (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=5525); though really these only scratch the surface.