Tough Caster

[Shadowscale]

In 3.5 how would one go about making a full arcane caster who is able to cast in heavy armor (not mitheral) and have access two one or two martial weapons with a higher hit dice if possible. I really want to go for the whole constitution crazy arcane caster as hard to fall as a cleric essentially.

[Xerlith]

Dwarf Fighter1/Wizard4/Runesmith2/Spellsword1/Abjurant Champion5/Eldritch Knight8 ?

[dextercorvia]

Runesmith is a fairly easy way to do it.

Edit: Yeah, what he said, but you can get into Runesmith without dipping out of wizard if you really want to. Ruathar would get you a Martial Weapon proficiency, and a slightly better HD.

[Shadowscale]

Anyway outside of dwarf?

[dextercorvia]

Anyway outside of dwarf?

Bard into Sublime Chord with Battle Caster.

[MilesTiden]

+1 Twilight Thistledown Padded Blended Quartz Full Plate of Easy Travel is like, 17,250 GP and has 0% ASF, if I remember correctly.

[Shadowscale]

Do warlock and arcane theurges exist? Like with say a level of warmage or something?

[ranagrande]

Bard into Sublime Chord with Battle Caster.

This would still only let you use medium armor.

A Warmage with Battle Caster could do it at level 8 though. Follow it up with Rainbow Servant.

[sideswipe]

how about this? just thought it up,

duskblade 9/bard 1/sublime chord 10
or
duskblade 8/prestige bard 2/sublime chord 10

you get 9th levels spells, and the ability to cast in medium armour and a heavy sheild, take armoured mage for heavy armour casting.
for a large part of the build is a d10 hd, the rest are d6

[AmberVael]

+1 Twilight Thistledown Padded Blended Quartz Full Plate of Easy Travel is like, 17,250 GP and has 0% ASF, if I remember correctly.

If Blended Quartz isn't allowed, you can add on the Githcraft and Feycraft item templates to Mithral Fullplate instead. Or if you can use blended quartz AND item templates, you can afford to drop out twilight which will reduce costs (especially future enchantment costs).

[Shadowscale]

how about this? just thought it up,

duskblade 9/bard 1/sublime chord 10
or
duskblade 8/prestige bard 2/sublime chord 10

you get 9th levels spells, and the ability to cast in medium armour and a heavy sheild, take armoured mage for heavy armour casting.
for a large part of the build is a d10 hd, the rest are d6

How optimal would you say those two builds are? Also are they 0% ASF?

[sideswipe]

How optimal would you say those two builds are? Also are they 0% ASF?

builds themselves? mid-op for the reason it is a full caster, though you miss out on 0-3rd level wizard spells and instead get duskblade spells, you can transfer any touch spell through a sword instead of taking attacks of opportunity or using a method of ranged touch on touch spells. and unlimited times a day.

the only drawback is the very low BAB, if you want that higher then just use duskblade 8/prestige bard 2/sublime chord 5/abjurant champion 5
that gives you more HP and more BAB 16, infact ignore my original build and just take that one. i can't believe i didn't think of it earlier lol.

its not High OP, its not low op. its a solid idea that i would play. though i would get rid of duskblade entirely and use 0ASF fullplate and use wizard, take lost tradition and take it as a CON caster and have a billion hit points and bonus spells over exaggeration

and they are not exactly 0% arcane spell failure, they completely ignore ASF for light, medium or heavy armour as well as for up to heavy sheilds, (so yes 0% ASF)
this is due to duskblade giving casting without ASF in medium armour, and then increasing that to heavy with armoured mage.

[ranagrande]

It doesn't work that way though...

Sublime Chord can only cast in light armor normally, so with Battle Caster, Duskblade spells could be cast in heavy armor, but Sublime Chord would still be limited to medium.

[sideswipe]

It doesn't work that way though...

Sublime Chord can only cast in light armor normally, so with Battle Caster, Duskblade spells could be cast in heavy armor, but Sublime Chord would still be limited to medium.

i stand corrected.

[dextercorvia]

This would still only let you use medium armor.

A Warmage with Battle Caster could do it at level 8 though. Follow it up with Rainbow Servant.

You are correct. I was misremembering that Battle Caster could be taken twice and stack.

[Doc_Maynot]

Alternatively, if you are able to use some Dragon Magazine content.
The metamagic feat alternate source spell lets you cast arcane spells as divine, which should eliminate ASF.
The down side is you'd need some form of divine casting to pick up the feat.