[3.5] Need help with Sublime Chord build

[Chaosvii7]

Hey there, Playgrounders! There's a new 3.5 campaign starting at my FLGS, and I've decided to hop into it. I've decided to build my character around the needs of the party, and at this point the only thing they could use is a decent skillmonkey and a utility/buffer character. So I thought I'd be able to roll up a bard(easily my favorite character class in any game of any sort, really), with the intent of doing a build somewhat reminiscent of this Sublime Chord Eldritch Knight (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Battle_Knight_Bard_of_Sublime_Chord_%283.5e_Optimi zed_Character_Build%29) build. It seems perfect; By 20th level I can have a full list of spells, still have a diverse array of talents, have 4 attacks per round, and still have the useful bardic music abilities. (My stat rolls were four +2s, so I can be pretty balanced all around, but the lack of a really strong stat hurts me a bit)

The only problem I have with the build is the 4-level dip in Abjurant Champion it takes, simply because before 10th level there is very little mechanical benefit to take those 4 levels, and if I'm in Abjurant Champion it seems pointless to not take it the whole way through, except I still wouldn't benefit from it greatly besides the BAB, which isn't that spectacular. Sure, long-duration extra strength abjurations are good, but then I'd have to voluntarily go out of my way to get them as a Sublime Chord/Eldritch Knight, because Bard doesn't have a grand supply of strong and meaningful abjuration buffs. It just seems like a lot of hassle for something that could be better used picking up more useful class abilities.

So the help I'm asking for is relatively simple; I just need a prestige class that progresses arcane spellcasting for at least the first 4 levels and only requires 2 entrance feats. Anything that works is fine, it doesn't even have to compliment the build the whole way through.

For reference, I saw Harper Paragon and that looked very enticing as a pick, but I have no way of getting Favored enemy against any of those things for free to the best of my knowledge. If someone can point me in the direction of that I wouldn't say no either.

Additionally, I'd be willing to listen to some feedback on the overall build - with or without the modifications. Just know that it's not mine originally, but if you think it can be improved even further then I'll gladly listen in.

[A.A.King]

I don't think you can get Favored Enemy for free, nothing ever is :P

But if you want Favored Enemy without dipping or paying a feat then you can use the "Avenging Paladin" variant from UA (or the SRD):

Paladin
The paladin who takes an active role in hunting her foul enemies must give up her defensive powers.

Gain
Favored enemy (as ranger; may only select aberrations, dragons, giants, monstrous humanoids, evil outsiders, or undead).

Lose
Lay on hands, turn undead, remove disease.

This lets you get either Favored Enemy Outsider (Evil) or Favored Enemy Undead to qualify for Harper Paragon when you take Paladin 1 in exchange for getting Lay on Hands at level 2.

EDIT:
And if you're just looking for a PrC class with 3/4 BAB and 4/4 Casting then the "Sacred Exorcist" PrC from Complete Divine. It requires some ranks in both Knowledge (Religion) and Knowledge (The Planes), which might be helpful anyway because you seem to be taking "Knowledge Devotion"

[A_S]

How about 3 levels of Lyric Thaumaturge? It loses you 1 BAB compared to Abjurant Champion, but you still finish with 17 BAB at level 20. It gets you extra Bardic Music uses, and extra level 1 and 2 spells known which are drawn from the Sorc/Wiz list, which lets you pick up goodies that Sublime Chord gishes normally miss out on, like Wraithstrike. It requires one feat.

The final build would be: Bard 4/Paladin of Freedom 2/Lyric Thaumaturge 3/Eldritch Knight 1/Sublime Chord 1/Eldritch Knight +9

I think there are stronger Sublime Chord-based gishes than this (Eldritch Knight is notoriously short on actual class features), but this'll get the job done.

[gorfnab]

First off I recommend avoiding dandwiki as it is usually full of homebrew and misinformation.

Bard based gishes can be built fairly easily. While Eldritch Knight is great for advancing BAB and spellcasting, that's all it really has. It provides no other class features. For melee based Bard builds I recommend the following

Bard 8/ Paladin of Freedom 2/ Sublime Chord 2/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Sacred Exorcist 3

Bard 6/ Crusader or Warbalde 2/ Jade Phoenix Mage 2/ Sublime Chord 2/ Jade Phoenix Mage 8 (or Abjurant Champion 5/ JPM3)

If you want the Harper Paragon dip you could consider this build: Bard 8/ Ranger 2/ Sublime Chord 2/ Harper Paragon 3/ Abjurant Champion 5

[Chaosvii7]

I don't think you can get Favored Enemy for free, nothing ever is :P

But if you want Favored Enemy without dipping or paying a feat then you can use the "Avenging Paladin" variant from UA (or the SRD):

This lets you get either Favored Enemy Outsider (Evil) or Favored Enemy Undead to qualify for Harper Paragon when you take Paladin 1 in exchange for getting Lay on Hands at level 2.

That actually sounds like a wonderful alternative! I'm in a 2-level Paladin dip to get the Divine Grace, so this ACF could easily set me up.


How about 3 levels of Lyric Thaumaturge? It loses you 1 BAB compared to Abjurant Champion, but you still finish with 17 BAB at level 20. It gets you extra Bardic Music uses, and extra level 1 and 2 spells known which are drawn from the Sorc/Wiz list, which lets you pick up goodies that Sublime Chord gishes normally miss out on, like Wraithstrike. It requires one feat.

The final build would be: Bard 4/Paladin of Freedom 2/Lyric Thaumaturge 3/Eldritch Knight 1/Sublime Chord 1/Eldritch Knight +9

I think there are stronger Sublime Chord-based gishes than this (Eldritch Knight is notoriously short on actual class features), but this'll get the job done.

I was looking at Lyric Thaumaturge for this build, but IIRC it doesn't advance spellcasting levels, just give you bonus spells. But the build you've suggested to me looks very enticing, and a little bit more concise. I'll definitely consider this one.


First off I recommend avoiding dandwiki as it is usually full of homebrew and misinformation.

Oh, trust me. I know. I picked the build carefully and even then I'm still being cautious about it. But I did like the concept, myself.


Bard 8/ Paladin of Freedom 2/ Sublime Chord 2/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Sacred Exorcist 3

Bard 6/ Crusader or Warbalde 2/ Jade Phoenix Mage 2/ Sublime Chord 2/ Jade Phoenix Mage 8 (or Abjurant Champion 5/ JPM3)

If you want the Harper Paragon dip you could consider this build: Bard 8/ Ranger 2/ Sublime Chord 2/ Harper Paragon 3/ Abjurant Champion 5

As for your builds, they are all fairly strong builds. The only concern is the Bard/Warblade one because this DM, while not first time, is still fairly new, so I wouldn't want to bog him down with an excessive amount of mechanics and stuff to watch me upkeep my character sheet. But those other two are incredibly enticing. Worst case scenario I could also make the bard a Divine bard, which really only affects spell selection but shifts the primary stat over to Wisdom, and then I can use divine-only spellcaster PRCs. Thank you for your build recommendations!

----

All in all, my plan is currently to roll up a Bard 1 and get a feel for the party for the first four levels before making my final decision on the full build, while carefully pondering all of the wonderful options you put forward to me. I'm still up for hearing suggestions that people have for helping this build out, but I appreciate all of the help so far!

[A_S]

I was looking at Lyric Thaumaturge for this build, but IIRC it doesn't advance spellcasting levels, just give you bonus spells. But the build you've suggested to me looks very enticing, and a little bit more concise. I'll definitely consider this one.
It advances Bard spellcasting, but can't be used to advance Sublime Chord, which is why all the levels of it in the build I posted are pre-10.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

First off I recommend avoiding dandwiki as it is usually full of homebrew and misinformation.

Oh, trust me. I know. I picked the build carefully and even then I'm still being cautious about it. But I did like the concept, myself.

Do take note of the wording of Eldritch Knight's spellcasting progression:

"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.

If a character had more than one arcane spellcasting class before she became an eldritch knight, she must decide to which class she adds each level of eldritch knight for the purpose of determining spells per day."

Note that EK can only advance the spellcasting of a class you had before you gained your first level of EK, so in the build you linked none of the EK levels can advance the Sublime Chord spellcasting.
Furthermore, EK does not advance your spells known, it only grants you additional spells/day and caster level. So even if that build did get to advance SC using EK, it would only have the spells known of a 2nd level Sublime Chord at 20th level.

Eldritch Knight is just a filler class anyway, you shouldn't use it unless it's the only way you can get the BAB and spellcasting you need by 20th level.

Sacred Exorcist is often the go-to choice for any spontaneous casting arcane gish. You need a good alignment anyway to use this trick (www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?267805-Sorcerer-Handbook#4), which saves you the spell known to qualify for Sacred Exorcist until its spell-like abilities meet its own prerequisite for you. Abjurant Champion benefits the spell (Greater) Luminous Armor which can only be cast on a good aligned character, you can take the feat Arcane Preparation to be able to cast sanctified spells such as those, or just put them on your Runestaff. You can actually put any spells you want on your Runestaff regardless of what spell list they're from, and make a DC 20 UMD check when you attune yourself to it to cast them as though they were on your spell list. You can even use Illumian with Naenhoon to spend your turn undead uses to Persist two spells each day.

[A_S]

Do take note of the wording of Eldritch Knight's spellcasting progression:

"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.

If a character had more than one arcane spellcasting class before she became an eldritch knight, she must decide to which class she adds each level of eldritch knight for the purpose of determining spells per day."

Note that EK can only advance the spellcasting of a class you had before you gained your first level of EK, so in the build you linked none of the EK levels can advance the Sublime Chord spellcasting.
Furthermore, EK does not advance your spells known, it only grants you additional spells/day and caster level. So even if that build did get to advance SC using EK, it would only have the spells known of a 2nd level Sublime Chord at 20th level.
This is wonky as hell, and I have never noticed it before. Are there any other spellcasting-advancing PrC's that are commonly used that don't actually fully advance spellcasting if you read them closely? I always skim those bits in PrC descriptions because I thought they all said the same thing.

[Chaosvii7]

Note that EK can only advance the spellcasting of a class you had before you gained your first level of EK, so in the build you linked none of the EK levels can advance the Sublime Chord spellcasting.
Furthermore, EK does not advance your spells known, it only grants you additional spells/day and caster level. So even if that build did get to advance SC using EK, it would only have the spells known of a 2nd level Sublime Chord at 20th level.

While that's fine if it's what the RAW comes out to, I think it can easily be interpreted that it can advance spells known as well, because the difference between the clause at the end of the description for Sacred Exorcist and Eldritch Knight is virtually the same, save that Sacred Exorcist explicitly mentions spells known:

Spells per Day/Spells Known: A sacred exorcist advances in spellcasting ability as well as learning the skills of exorcism. Thus, when a new sacred exorcist level is gained, the character gains new spells per day as if she had also gained a level in whatever 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 (improved chance of controlling or rebuking undead, more frequent remove disease, and so on). This means that she adds the level of sacred exorcist to the level of another spellcasting class the character has, then determines spells per day accordingly.

...

If a character had more than one spellcasting class in which she could cast dismissal or dispel evil before she became a sacred exorcist, the player must decide which class to assign each level of sacred exorcist for the purpose of determining spells per day and spells known.

The Eldritch Knight's final sentence clause does not mention spells known, but save for some flavor words it's the same description between these two prestige classes, which means that either Sacred Exorcist shouldn't logically progress spells known, or there's no reason that I couldn't talk to my DM about making sure that Eldritch Knight gives spells known on top of spells per day.

All in all, Sacred Exorcist just doesn't seem enticing mechanically, nor does it really scream being very worthwhile to me. It's not hard to see how it could easily benefit a spellcaster who was aiming towards gish; It's got a good divine caster HD with 3/4 BAB, it progresses any form of spellcasting(somewhat obvious if Sorcerers use it for their gish builds) and the turn undead is useful for Divine Metamagic, but everything else it offers seems like a sink in XP and levels - call me crazy that I would actually value Eldritch Knight's 1 bonus feat and nothing else to the Sacred Exorcist's Exorcism and aura abilities.

If by RAW Eldritch Knight wouldn't work then I am all for nixing Eldritch Knight, but I'd like to find something that, if it can't give me full spellcasting(16-20 levels of full spellcasting is enough to satiate me, I'm a man of simple tastes), then at least brings the kit somewhat together to make a majority of the elements of it more cohesive(that is, okay survivability with combat buffers, a little bit of bardic utility, and high-end spellcasting). A +16 BAB and just being shy of or having only one 9th level spell(s) is fine for me for anything I'd be able to trade in for.

If need be, I can also update the OP with some extra base stats to make my exact capabilities clear. Currently I've set the character at 1st level up so that he can easily qualify for Lyric Thaumaturge before I would be dipping into Paladin at 5th level, because I do like Lyric Thaumaturge after reading it over(and noticing that it does progress spellcasting; Thanks for the help with that A_S).