What's a good elfy Gish build?

[RPGaddict28]

I need to make a 20th level gish for my campaign. I have no clue how to make a good gish, so I turn to you guys.

The only things that have to be in the build, is that he has to be, a PHB elf, because he's the elven king, and I would prefer that it feels elfy, but if it doesn't, it's no deal breaker.

[KoboldMasteRace]

I'd think about something like Warblade 4/Wizard 3/Jade Phoenix Mage 4/Swiftblade 9 (probably not in that order). Swiftblades tend to feel pretty elfy by virtue of the fact that elf wizards don't have to multiclass or waste feats to get into it, but that's pretty flavor-dependent. But yeah. Transmutation Focused Specialist on the wizard and ban uselessly overly CL-dependent schools like Evocation, Enchantment, and probably Necromancy. Gets 6th level spells and the sweet abilities of the Swiftblade, you get all your iteratives, and your combination of maneuvers and the aforementioned Swiftblade class abilities let you manipulate the action economy like crazy. For more fun, scrolls of Embrace/Shun the Dark Chaos at level 20 to take advantage of being an 11th level caster to nab Craft Contingent Spell.

There are ways to get better casting, but this is generally a fairly reliable build.

[Snowbluff]

Martial (Fighter feats instead of Scribe Scroll/Wizard bonus feats)Wizard6/Swiftblade9/Spelldancer1/AbjurantChampion4

9th level spells, 16 BAB. The bare minimum for an optimized Gish build.

Other Feats that are not Prereqs:
Persistent Spell
Ocular Spell


Weapon: +1 keen Prismatic Burst Wrathful Healing etc Longsword. Elves have the proficiency for free.

Basic spells to have active/Persisted:
Greater Magic Weapon
Wraithstrike
Bite of the Werebear (Enh to Str Con, Power Attack, and Natural Armor)
Greater Luminous Armor (Which has a +4 bonus from Abj Champ)
Shield (See Luminous Armor)
Mindblank
Haste (Ex for Swiftblades, and covers miss chances, Freedom of Movement, and gives extra actions)

Have a (Selective) AMF for when people get cheeky. Even if it's not selective, Swiftblades have a pretty hefty bonus form their Ex abilities.

[Tommy2255]

Get all 5 levels of Abjurant Champion, a 1 level dip in Spellsword can be worth it for the spell failure chance reduction and because it gives you BAB and caster progression potentially a level earlier than you can enter Abjurant Champion (meaning that your 1 ahead in BAB progression compared to taking some other casting class or 1 ahead in casting progression compared to a dip in some other martial class). Elf Paragon 3 loses 1 level of BAB and 1 of Caster Progression, but it gets you a +2 int, which I like. Not sure if it's worth it, but you'll be taking Practiced Spellcaster anyway, so the loss of 1 CL can be mitigated a couple times over the course of the build. A 1 level dip in Swashbuckler early in your career when you're building up BAB to qualify for Abjurant Champion can net you weapon finesse and some fairly neat swift action SLAs (Arcane Stunt ACF, you benefit at first level, don't start paying for it until 2nd level, that you aren't taking anyway). If you want that dip of Spellsword for the slight edge it gets you in Caster Progression, you'll need something with proficiency in all armor, which probably means a level of fighter, but if you do Duskblade instead, you get another type of spellcasting (nice if you use lots of very low level spells, and it's another place to get bonus spells if you really focus on boosting Int) and 2nd level nets you Combat Casting (required for Abjurant Champion) for free.

Some, any, all, or none of this might be helpful. The Gish Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8786) will probably be more useful than I will ever be.

[Snowbluff]

A few notes, for posterity.

Get all 5 levels of Abjurant Champion, Abj Champ 5 is effectively a dead level.

a 1 level dip in Spellsword can be worth it for the spell failure chance reduction and because it gives you BAB and caster progression potentially a level earlier than you can enter Abjurant Champion (meaning that your 1 ahead in BAB progression compared to taking some other casting class or 1 ahead in casting progression compared to a dip in some other martial class). ASF doesn't apply to Luminous Armor. The early BAB tip is useless on a completed level 20 build


Elf Paragon 3 loses 1 level of BAB and 1 of Caster Progression, but it gets you a +2 int, which I like. Not sure if it's worth it, but you'll be taking Practiced Spellcaster anyway, so the loss of 1 CL can be mitigated a couple times over the course of the build. A 1 level dip in Swashbuckler early in your career when you're building up BAB to qualify for Abjurant Champion can net you weapon finesse and some fairly neat swift action SLAs (Arcane Stunt ACF, you benefit at first level, don't start paying for it until 2nd level, that you aren't taking anyway). 1 level of caster progression > 1 BAB or 2 int if your build isn't hitting 9th level spells.

[Darkweave31]

I'm always a fan of the swiftblade. Phantom knight (eberron five nations?) is pretty cool if not the most optimized. Basically an eldritch knight with abilities that revolve around mastery of the phantom steed spell... see if you could get phantom stag (spell compendium) off the druid list if you want to really go for elf king of the woodland realm.

[(Un)Inspired]

Martial (Fighter feats instead of Scribe Scroll/Wizard bonus feats)Wizard6/Swiftblade9/Spelldancer1/AbjurantChampion4

9th level spells, 16 BAB. The bare minimum for an optimized Gish build.

Other Feats that are not Prereqs:
Persistent Spell
Ocular Spell


Weapon: +1 keen Prismatic Burst Wrathful Healing etc Longsword. Elves have the proficiency for free.

Basic spells to have active/Persisted:
Greater Magic Weapon
Wraithstrike
Bite of the Werebear (Enh to Str Con, Power Attack, and Natural Armor)
Greater Luminous Armor (Which has a +4 bonus from Abj Champ)
Shield (See Luminous Armor)
Mindblank
Haste (Ex for Swiftblades, and covers miss chances, Freedom of Movement, and gives extra actions)

Have a (Selective) AMF for when people get cheeky. Even if it's not selective, Swiftblades have a pretty hefty bonus form their Ex abilities.

This is how you do it.

The only things you should ad to this is making your elf a necropolitan. You elf is king of the elves because he literally lives forever and becasue necropolitan is soooooo much better for this character. Take faerie mysteries initiate if you really want him to have better hp than everybody else in the elf nation.

Now chaos shuffle away all you useless weapon proficiencies other than longsword. Using a longsword in two hand is great for a gish and you can spend all the other feats on metamagic or on FMI whatever you want. It's not like he'll ever pick up a bow.


I'm always a fan of the swiftblade. Phantom knight (eberron five nations?) is pretty cool if not the most optimized. Basically an eldritch knight with abilities that revolve around mastery of the phantom steed spell... see if you could get phantom stag (spell compendium) off the druid list if you want to really go for elf king of the woodland realm.

The phantom knight is indeed a very cool prestige class even if it lacks the power of the swiftblade or the abjurant champion. The best way I know for a gish to be able to cast Phantom stag is for you to base your gish off of a sorcerer instead of a wizard. Sorcerers can learn to cast it if they become sufficiently familiar with it.

[Crake]

Abj Champ 5 is effectively a dead level.


It does give you the ability to swift action cast 3rd level abjurations, which means, among other things, swift action dispel magics, which isn't a horrible. I wouldn't exactly call it a DEAD level.

[Firechanter]

Screw BAB. Take a few levels of Incantatrix, take the Arcane Disciple Feat for the War domain, Persist Divine Power, presto.
Getting reasonable HP is a bigger problem.

[Fouredged Sword]

Not as a fire elf. Fairy Misteries Initiate means your HP will rival the barbarian's. With Int to HP, that +5 tome, +6 item, +2 racial and 5 points from character growth means you should be rocking a 36 base int and thus 280 base HP, minimum.

I like the following gish myself. Very elfy.

Wizard 2 / Elf Paragon 3 / Ruathar 3 / Abjurant Champion 5 / Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 7.

You lack some BAB over a traditional gish (only +13), but make up for it with 19/20 wizard casting and some of the best defenses in the game.

You need early entery tricks for Ruathar, I recommend earth spell and heighten.

Get Arcane Devotion (war) for divine power to persist for full bab.

[Snowbluff]

This is how you do it.
Yes, yes it is. This build is a powerful in-combat caster, and has effects that mitigate the problems with traditional gish builds. That is, reliance on dispellable effects.


The phantom knight
Do you ever feel like Gish PrCs are really gimmicky and based on one spell? Abj Champ is a bonus to Shield. Swiftblade is a haste addict. Phantom Knight has Mount.

It does give you the ability to swift action cast 3rd level abjurations, which means, among other things, swift action dispel magics, which isn't a horrible. I wouldn't exactly call it a DEAD level.
Dispel Magic is obsolete unless you optimize the crap out of your dispel checks, and it's mostly obsolete because Arcane Turmoil is a level lower.

[(Un)Inspired]

Swiftblade and Abjurant champion don't just give you a good bab and advance your spellcasting; they actively make you better at using your spells to go into physical combat.

If you only take 9 levels of swiftblade you can still get 9th level wizard spells. With those nine levels haste goes from being an awesome party buff to becoming a spell that lets you stand toe to toe in melee combat against a warblade.

An actual gish needs to have at least 16 bab and 9th level spells (or even better psionic powers) as others have stated in this thread. This is the bare minimum to get to call yourself a gish. To be a good gish, however, you need to have specific, powerful reasons to cast spells AND go into combat. with just a high bab you are still better of just casting ranged touch spells. These two prestige classes justify actually being a full spellcaster and a full warrior.

Oh and yeah, Snowbluff, you're right I never thought about it before but all the best gish Prc are based on single spells...

[Raezeman]

the very easy and simple answer: there is always 20 levels of duskblade

[Snowbluff]

the very easy and simple answer: there is always 20 levels of duskblade

Too simple.

DB13/Totemist2/CrintiShadowMarauder5

Feats/teleports:
Dimensional Jaunt [Reserve]
Stand (swift action teleport)
Blink Shirt (Bound to Totem, move action D. Door)

TWF Full channel Empowered Vampiric Touch with Poison Rings.

[(Un)Inspired]

the very easy and simple answer: there is always 20 levels of duskblade

Duskblade has 20 levels? I thought it only had 13...

Maybe duskblade 13/ factotum 3/ ardent 4

Serious combat abilities , incredible skills, 9th level psionic powers.