Sorc build to archmage, but want to Gish

[Blablbalb]

I am not sure if this would be the right place for this [usual lurker, but reg so I could ask this], but here it goes.
Started a campaign a few weeks ago. The two other spell casters left so it's me, two meatshields, a rogue who throws daggers as a main attack, a gnome monk, and a Druid who is trying to be the healer.

We are level 3, I basically do battlefield control. This is my first legitimate campaign, and it is with a fairly large group. The plan for my character was sorcerer15/archmage5. We have been advancing fairly quickly in level so I have been planning for 20.

I would like to instead do something like sorcerer10/abj champ5/initiate of the sevenfold 5-then on if we end up going epic tier.

This is both for a rp aspect (I play the cha leader, "dashing gentleman") and because I feel I could make combat more enticing. I never plan on taking many blasty spells, and even with my current feats I feel like I could still make the turn to Gish work.

There are better prcs, but as I was not originally planning on doing this feat-wise I have:
Imp Init, Spellfocus(gimmeasecillexplain), skillfocus(spell craft)
I currently don't have a focus in abj, but the dm is letting me change if I'd like. But this is mostly set up so that I could go right to archmage as soon as I was ready. I could grab weapon prof rapier and then combat casting before the first prc so it could work. I have a 9 in Str but could grab weapon finesse for a 14 dex at level 12.

So, long winded, but my question is: can I do this/can I do this gishyness better? And should I even do it? Of course half the time I would be doing control and half would be stabbing w a rapier, but we have enough melee so should I do a "better for the party" decision and try to beef up my spell stuff?

tl;dr Sorcerer looking for some direction and some optimization!

[Telonius]

I am not sure if this would be the right place for this [usual lurker, but reg so I could ask this], but here it goes.
Started a campaign a few weeks ago. The two other spell casters left so it's me, two meatshields, a rogue who throws daggers as a main attack, a gnome monk, and a Druid who is trying to be the healer.

We are level 3, I basically do battlefield control. This is my first legitimate campaign, and it is with a fairly large group. The plan for my character was sorcerer15/archmage5. We have been advancing fairly quickly in level so I have been planning for 20.

I would like to instead do something like sorcerer10/abj champ5/initiate of the sevenfold 5-then on if we end up going epic tier.

This is both for a rp aspect (I play the cha leader, "dashing gentleman") and because I feel I could make combat more enticing. I never plan on taking many blasty spells, and even with my current feats I feel like I could still make the turn to Gish work.

There are better prcs, but as I was not originally planning on doing this feat-wise I have:
Imp Init, Spellfocus(gimmeasecillexplain), skillfocus(spell craft)
I currently don't have a focus in abj, but the dm is letting me change if I'd like. But this is mostly set up so that I could go right to archmage as soon as I was ready. I could grab weapon prof rapier and then combat casting before the first prc so it could work. I have a 9 in Str but could grab weapon finesse for a 14 dex at level 12.

So, long winded, but my question is: can I do this/can I do this gishyness better? And should I even do it? Of course half the time I would be doing control and half would be stabbing w a rapier, but we have enough melee so should I do a "better for the party" decision and try to beef up my spell stuff?

tl;dr Sorcerer looking for some direction and some optimization!

What's your spell selection like currently, and what sources are available? The "dashing gentleman" idea, Rapier, and lack of blasty spells, sounds more like a Beguiler than a Sorcerer to me. If your selection intersects with the Beguiler's list, you might consider going Beguiler rather than Sorcerer.

Also, to the group composition ... how experienced are the other players? I'm seeing a Gnome Monk (!) and a Druid in the same party, and hoping they both know exactly what they're getting into.

[Blablbalb]

What's your spell selection like currently, and what sources are available? The "dashing gentleman" idea, Rapier, and lack of blasty spells, sounds more like a Beguiler than a Sorcerer to me. If your selection intersects with the Beguiler's list, you might consider going Beguiler rather than Sorcerer.

Also, to the group composition ... how experienced are the other players? I'm seeing a Gnome Monk (!) and a Druid in the same party, and hoping they both know exactly what they're getting into.

Thanks for the response,
Spell list:
1st-- grease, Mage armor, silent image
0-- detect magic, light, prestidigitation, ghost sound, read magic

The dm is pretty relaxed on sources.

I may have to look into beguiled, I've heard it mentioned before, but never investigated.

We have an...interesting group. Our dwarven fighter/paragon/warblade is very competent/experienced, but for the most part the rest of the group are going at it more as an mmo rather than d&d. Our barb doesn't use rage and instead jumps on everything in sight. The rogue is learning, but mostly just tumbles everywhere. Our gnome monk realizes his "mistake", but he's trying to make it work. Our Druid is mainly just lacking experience.
We're mostly trying to have fun, and while we like to goof off a lot we are starting to take the game a little more seriously.

[Rebel7284]

If there are TWO meatshields and a druid (another two meatshields), do you really want to become the 5th meat shield? I like gishes, I played a swiftblade in the past, but it sounds like with your party it's not the best choice. If you really want to do it anyway, enter Incantatrix, take Persistent Spell, and walk around in Draconic Polymorph all day.

edit: Here is a nice for to Draconic Polymorph into: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20040815b&page=6

[Starmage21]

A gish build probably wont do well as a meat shield. What it will do is let you get in there as 2nd string melee.

[Telonius]

Thanks for the response,
Spell list:
1st-- grease, Mage armor, silent image
0-- detect magic, light, prestidigitation, ghost sound, read magic

The dm is pretty relaxed on sources.

I may have to look into beguiled, I've heard it mentioned before, but never investigated.

We have an...interesting group. Our dwarven fighter/paragon/warblade is very competent/experienced, but for the most part the rest of the group are going at it more as an mmo rather than d&d. Our barb doesn't use rage and instead jumps on everything in sight. The rogue is learning, but mostly just tumbles everywhere. Our gnome monk realizes his "mistake", but he's trying to make it work. Our Druid is mainly just lacking experience.
We're mostly trying to have fun, and while we like to goof off a lot we are starting to take the game a little more seriously.

Beguiler is from PHB2. It has a fixed list of spells available, but many of them are very nice (and you Know them all, unlike Sorcerer who has to choose which he learns). Mage Armor, Silent Image, Detect Magic, Ghost Sound, and Read Magic are all on the Beguiler list. Light isn't, but Dancing Lights is; so Grease would be the only one you have now, that wouldn't be available.

Beguiler is not as powerful as Sorcerer, but in a new-ish group you really don't need to be breaking the world in two.

Just some pointers for the Monk character (sounds like he needs it too) - two levels of Monk are actually not that bad. They can give some prerequisite feats, are great for skills (compared to most other melee) and the saves are obviously a very nice thing. I'd suggest letting him know about the Sacred Fist prestige class from Complete Divine. It basically combines Monk and Cleric into a single class. If the Druid is feeling hampered by the healer role, this could relieve the pressure from him; and the full-BAB progression will make the Monk hit more often. Depending on which feats he took for the Monk Bonus feats, he might already meet half the prerequisites. (The other typical Monk-replacement class is the Swordsage from Tome of Battle, but wrapping his brain around maneuvers when the whole group is still learning the basics might be a bit too much).

[Darkweave31]

Hmmmm... If you really wanted to be a gish sorcerer I'd suggest swiftblade (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070327). You'll be able to make it into the class after level 6 (you may have to ask the DM to retrain one or two of your feats). The class is basically haste incarnate. You get a bunch of great abilities to go along with haste and can play hit and run in melee when you don't feel like pulling out all of your spells. For a sorcerer I'd suggest taking all ten levels. You'll end up losing access to 9th level spells but you get time stop from swiftblade. Shouldn't be too bad for your party's optimization level.

End of the day you'll be dashing around the battlefield, frustrating enemies with your magic and speed.

EDIT: If you choose to be a beguiler instead of sorcerer you can still use swiftblade (in fact it's quite fun and I highly recommend Beguiler 6/Swiftblade 10). You can also take 1 level of mindbender (Complete Arcane) if you are non-good to get telepathy out to 100 ft, a wonderful boon for any party face. This opens up the possibility of the mindsight feat from Lords of Madness to allow you to sense living creatures within your telepathy range. Build would look something like this...

Beguiler 5/ Mindbender 1/ Swiftblade 10/ whatever suits your fancy 4

Feats
1 - Dodge
3 - Mobility
6 - Mindsight

After that maybe invisible spell to keep your casting from being noticed, definitely practiced spellcaster to keep your caster level up. Frankly it's pretty open to whatever strategy you'd like to indulge in (I personally like archer swiftblades, but that's just my preference).

[Blablbalb]

Thank you for the replys all, I will be able to respond better closer to end of day

[Piggy Knowles]

Frankly, you can be a passable gish by 8th level just by taking polymorph as a spell known and choosing a form with good stats and some natural attacks. BAB isn't such a big deal when you're clawing and biting and rending rather than swinging a sword. Have your remaining spells focus on a decent mix of buffs, BFC and utility, and you'll do fine.

[Blablbalb]

Beguiler is from PHB2. It has a fixed list of spells available, but many of them are very nice (and you Know them all, unlike Sorcerer who has to choose which he learns). Mage Armor, Silent Image, Detect Magic, Ghost Sound, and Read Magic are all on the Beguiler list. Light isn't, but Dancing Lights is; so Grease would be the only one you have now, that wouldn't be available.

Beguiler is not as powerful as Sorcerer, but in a new-ish group you really don't need to be breaking the world in two.

Just some pointers for the Monk character (sounds like he needs it too) - two levels of Monk are actually not that bad. They can give some prerequisite feats, are great for skills (compared to most other melee) and the saves are obviously a very nice thing. I'd suggest letting him know about the Sacred Fist prestige class from Complete Divine. It basically combines Monk and Cleric into a single class. If the Druid is feeling hampered by the healer role, this could relieve the pressure from him; and the full-BAB progression will make the Monk hit more often. Depending on which feats he took for the Monk Bonus feats, he might already meet half the prerequisites. (The other typical Monk-replacement class is the Swordsage from Tome of Battle, but wrapping his brain around maneuvers when the whole group is still learning the basics might be a bit too much).

Our monk thanks you! Sacred fist definitely will help him take a spin in a better direction.

[zingbobco000]

First off I'd like to tell you that I love sorcerers. Thank you for choosing one. :smallwink::smallbiggrin:

Now on to the optimization, let's begin with looking at your character, pretty simple, a sorcerer who wants to be either an archmage or a gish-y character. Well, TBH we can do both... Let's see so you're a human? (Be one if you're not, they're great for sorcerers) Since it seems like you're re-doing your character or something like that I'd recommend switching out your STR for something with at least 14+, BTW what are your scores? At level 1 get Combat Casting and Power Attack, essential for gishes. (maybe not CC as much... but it's still a pre-req) then at level two take 2 levels of paladin. For divine grace as well as martial proficiency. At level 3 take some metamagic feat (empower spell anyone?) Take 5 levels of abjurant champion next feat take easy metamagic if the spell level increase is +2 or more (that same metamagic feat you just chose last 3 levels.) or a different metamagic feat. If the spell level increase is less then +2. After that take 3 levels of Incantrix for the persisting of stuff. Next take 6 levels of Eldritch knight for full BAB and d10 HD. During those 9 levels take spell focus (abjuration and evocation?) and skill focus (spellcraft). Finally take 5 levels of archmage, and your done!

This build isn't the best I realize that so don't bug me on it.

[Pluto!]

I don't love Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil on Sorcerers. If you can't go Master Specialist, the feat cost is intense, and for all the Iot7V's immediate action defenses, Sorcerers already have Wings of Cover earlier at no level or feat costs.

To transition into a Gish with an existing level 3 build, I'd be tempted to go Sorcerer 4/Crusader 1/Filler 1/JPM 5/AbjChamp 5/Spellsword 1/Sacred Exorcist 3, probably rearranging the levels to cherry pick the sweetest Devoted Spirit Maneuvers available. Crusader is so sturdy that just dipping into it does almost all the necessary work shoring up a squishy caster's defenses, and level 5 is one of the the best times to start Crusader levels, due to automatic 2nd level maneuver access.

[Thanatosia]

For a Sorc Gish, you may also want to consider dipping a level or two of monk, and then grabbing the Ascetic Mage feat, which will let you add your Cha bonus to your armor class instead of wisdom. COmbine that with Abjurant Champion Shield, and you can hit pretty insane AC levels (assuming AC is a factor in the campaign, I know some Optimizers consider AC an almost irrelivent stat).

[Piggy Knowles]

I've said it before, but... I really hate dipping into things like paladin or monk on sorcerer gish builds. Sorcerers are already behind wizards when it comes to casting; to compound that by taking levels in something else just seems too painful. I mean really, there's probably nothing sadder than a Sorcerer 3/Paladin 2 in the same party as a Wizard 5 - that increased BAB just isn't worth being effectively three levels behind a standard, non-spontaneous caster.

If you want a good class to give you a better chassis and some Charisma synergy, take Sacred Exorcist. 3/4 BAB, decent class features, and turn undead lets you divine feats like Divine Might. Sorcerer/Sacred Exorcist/Abjurant Champion does quite well as a gish without losing any levels.

[Thanatosia]

I've said it before, but... I really hate dipping into things like paladin or monk on sorcerer gish builds. Sorcerers are already behind wizards when it comes to casting
I kind of look at it from the perspective that dipping is what makes the Gish. I mean, from a strict optimization standpoint, you should never dip in anything that doesn't advance your casting, but from that standpoint, you should be making a pure caster, not a Gish. If I'm making a Gish, I'm looking primarily for fighting capacity enhanced by casting - I am going into it not thinking about having to be an equal caster to a full wizard, I'm more focused on how I keep up with the Fighter in melee while adding some spellcasting.... if casting was my focus I'd just be a caster. If you're gonna be focused on not falling behind casting to the Wizard, then don't be a Gish IMO.

[Pluto!]

With full CL builds, you get a more powerful character if you play a long campaign, but you also take drastically longer to reasonably expect to swing a sword at a monster without having a backup character sheet on hand.

[Blablbalb]

I don't love Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil on Sorcerers. If you can't go Master Specialist, the feat cost is intense, and for all the Iot7V's immediate action defenses, Sorcerers already have Wings of Cover earlier at no level or feat costs.

To transition into a Gish with an existing level 3 build, I'd be tempted to go Sorcerer 4/Crusader 1/Filler 1/JPM 5/AbjChamp 5/Spellsword 1/Sacred Exorcist 3, probably rearranging the levels to cherry pick the sweetest Devoted Spirit Maneuvers available. Crusader is so sturdy that just dipping into it does almost all the necessary work shoring up a squishy caster's defenses, and level 5 is one of the the best times to start Crusader levels, due to automatic 2nd level maneuver access.
This is awesome! I'm looking into how to best do this. It is essentially what I am looking to do. Is the reason I see only a 1 level dip in spell sword to keep CL higher? I feel like spellswords Channel spell is really sweet.

For the curious my ability scores are looking like:
Str 9, Con 13, Dex 14, Wis 9, Cha 16

I know it's the generic Gish multiclass, but 2 levels of paladin to get divine grace seems super necessary. Almost quintessential to the type of abilities my Gish would need, saving throws based on charisma? Yes pls.

[Darkweave31]

This is awesome! I'm looking into how to best do this. It is essentially what I am looking to do. Is the reason I see only a 1 level dip in spell sword to keep CL higher? I feel like spellswords Channel spell is really sweet.

For the curious my ability scores are looking like:
Str 9, Con 13, Dex 14, Wis 9, Cha 16

I know it's the generic Gish multiclass, but 2 levels of paladin to get divine grace seems super necessary. Almost quintessential to the type of abilities my Gish would need, saving throws based on charisma? Yes pls.

Frankly with the lower level of optimization you could get away with taking a few more levels in Jade Phoenix Mage or spellsword or paladin to gain whatever abilities you feel like you want. You can adjust the playground's builds to your taste of course.

There is also the battle sorcerer (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#sorcererVariantBattleS orcerer) if you just want to go with sorcerer most of the way and still get better BAB. Combine with divine companion from complete champion for healing and AC buffing goodness (note this is a good ACF if you don't want a familiar).

That being said, none of those ideas are most optimal. The most optimal route would be something that does not reduce your caster level or access to spells. Paladin cha to saves is nowhere near necessary, use spells to become immune to attacks instead. Channel spell isn't great, use a spell storing weapon instead if you really want. Higher level spells are always (roughly 99.9% of the time) better to have than whatever class features you may have gained otherwise, especially BAB.

Let's put it this way... at level 20, would you rather have time stop (to give you several buffing rounds, and time to set up battlefield control), shapechange (to turn into a combat form that will destroy things despite your poor BAB and make you immune to enemy attacks, I like Solar... note you can change every round to cycle your defenses), and wish (because it's wish, but really any 9th level spell is amazing compared to other class features)... or would you like to have a few tome of battle maneuvers, channel spell, and/or cha to saves.

In my mind it's really no contest. 9th level spells are just that good. Gish with your spell selection if you really want, or just poke helpless enemies with a rapier after your spells have won the encounter and the party is in the cleanup phase.

Here's one of the most optimal methods...

Take iron will (via otyugh hole if you can, have your DM throw you in prison to get it, have fun with it), persistent spell, and 10 levels of incantatrix, get items that will give you bonuses on spellcraft checks, use metamagic effect to persist whatever personal combat buffs you want. Use cooporative metamagic to let the druid do the same for themselves. Start looking for good personal combat buffs that you want to be active on you 24 hours a day. Use instant metamagic for the higher level ones that may be out of your spellcraft check's reach.

Get a runestaff with 1/day heart of air/water/fire/earth... You'll be very happy with the immunities. Get other runestaves that have buffs that you'll only use 1/day (It'll give your spell list a bit more room)

Buff yourself to the moon and back each day and laugh at the futile attempts of enemies to harm you while you reign arcane destruction down upon them... or just punch them until they die, you'll have all the time in the world.

A personal favorite combo of mine is persisted ghostform, superior invisibility, and ghost touch gauntlets. Enemies need true sight to see you and magic to have a 50% chance to hit you. You can also hide in walls/floor/ceiling to grant yourself total cover between attacks.

Throw in shapechange on top of that and you'll be a juggernaut of destruction.

Enjoy ascension to godhood.

[Thanatosia]

Is the reason I see only a 1 level dip in spell sword to keep CL higher?
I consider a 1 level dip in spellsword more or less an automatic in most Gish builds. It's only pre-reqs are things most Gish builds satisfies automatically with no special effort, and the first level gives


Full BAB
Spell Progression
Saves Boost (+2 fort & will, +2.5 if using fraction saves rules from UA)
useful reduction in Arcane Spellfailure from wearing armor (mithril chain shirt with no spell failure)
does not cause any sort of multiclass xp penalty if you playing with those.


Most gishes grab that first level then bail, since the 2nd level costs Spell progression with no where near enough incentive to pay the caster level.