[3.5] How would you build Mystra's Wiz/Pal/Rgr investigator?

[DEMON]

Not trying to go for the most powerful option (i.e. mostly Wizard), but trying to optimize within the boundaries.

The plan is to take levels in Wizard, Paladin and Ranger, with some of the sub levels for Mystra devoting Ranger and Paladin, combined with the Sword of the Arcane order and Devoted Tracker feats.

Since Ranger has to give up his animal companion for the best sub level feature (Shooting Star Ranger lvl 4), a level of Beastmaster seems the best option to benefit from Devoted Tracker.

I'm still undecided on whether to take Paladin's Mystic Fire Knight lvl 4 substitution, but am inclined to do so.

Elf seems like a good option, since it has decent sub levels for all 3 base classes...

I'm thinking Wiz 1 / Pal 6 / Rgr 12 / Beast 1 is the way to go, but am open to suggestions.

Paladin, Ranger and Wizard levels are mandatory, as is SotAO and I would very much like to include the Devoted Tracker feat. Also Skill Focus (Handle Animal) is a prereq for the Beastmaster.

I am very much open to suggestions on other feats, skill tricks, skills to prioritize and equipment.

Please note, no Dragon Magazine material (so no Mystic Ranger) and the Wildshape ranger ACF is not allowed.

Thank you in advance for any constructive advice.

[DEMON]

This is the build I have so far, with several open feat slots and a whole lot of ACFs I am considering

Lvl Class BAB For Ref Will SP Feats
1 Rgr 1 1 2 2 0 Point Blank Shot
2 Wiz 1 1 2 2 2 Precise Shot
3 Pal 1 2 4 2 2 Skill Focus (HA)
4 Pal 2 3 5 2 2
5 Pal 3 4 5 3 3
6 Pal 4 5 6 3 3 SotAO
7 Pal 5 6 6 3 3
8 Rgr 2 7 7 4 3 Rapid Shot (B)
9 Beast 1 8 9 5 3 Devoted Tracker
10 Rgr 3 9 9 5 4 Endurance / Sub
11 Rgr 4 10 10 6 4
12 Pal 6 11 11 7 5 Woodland Archer
13 Rgr 5 12 11 7 5
14 Rgr 6 13 12 8 6 Manyshot (B)
15 Rgr 7 14 12 8 6 OPEN
16 Rgr 8 15 13 9 6
17 Rgr 9 16 13 9 7
18 Rgr 10 17 14 10 7 OPEN
19 Rgr 11 18 14 10 7 Improved Precise Shot (B)
20 Rgr 12 19 15 12 8

ACFs/Sub levels:
Elf Wizard 1
Combat Wizard (considering trading Scribe Scroll for Precise Shot, if the 1st level feat would be Point Blank Shot; on the other hand, with Paladin, Ranger and Wizard spells on the list, Scribe Scroll might prove very useful)
Elf Paladin 1
Elf Paladin 3 (does this apply to the Paladin himself?)
Elf Paladin 5
Elf Ranger 3
Elf Ranger 4 (if this allows me to go d6 HD / 8 SP and trade the Choshee for Mystra's ACF)
Mystic Fire Knight 4 (hate losing Turn Undead, but the benefits seem really great)
Mystic Fire Knight 5
Mystic Fire Knight 6
Shooting Star Ranger 3
Shooting Star Ranger 4
Shooting Star Ranger 8 (undecided; since Wizard spells seem to make this redundant)
Arcane Hunter (good ACF and fits thematically)
Trap Expert (requires the Track feat to be taken pre-level 9 and stretches the skill points thin, but gives another role to the character; not able to combine with Shooting Star 8)

With the arcane CL improvements SotAO gives, I am also considering the option of Improved Familiar, or some way of combining familiar with animal companion and/or special mount. Alternative, trading it for Wizard of Sun and Moon ACF, or a Feat might be an option, though I think a significantly weaker one.

Other good feats I'm considering include Battle Blessing and Woodland Archer.

Edit: I realized that the Pally only gets 3 1st level spells (which can actually be Wizard spells, so Battle Casting might be a waste), thus I decided to go for archery feats instead. This costs me the Scribe Scroll feat and only leaves me with 2 OPEN feats late in my career, but I think I can live with that. Should I go for Knowledge Devotion as my 15th level feat?

Also, I'm open to suggestions on skill point distribtion. If I ditch lvl 8 Shooting Star ACF, I could even go for Track Expert ACF (but I would have to swap Point Blank Shot for Track feat, to qualify for Beastmaster and that take PBS instead of PrS as my Wizard 1 feat), but that's yet another skill to invest into (Disable Device; although there are workarounds, that can save me some skill points, like only investing 1 point and taking 10, or using summons to trigger the traps I detect...).

[A_S]

What exactly do you want this character to be able to do, mechanically? Some guidelines on that may make it easier for people to give you constructive advice.

The build as you have it presented is gaining essentially nothing from its multiclassing. Sure, it's less powerful than Wizard 20, and I understand that that's a feature, not a bug; you're not trying to build a main caster. But it's also substantially weaker than Ranger 20 or Paladin 20 with SotAO, due to missing out on higher level spell slots. I mean, you're devoting a class level (Wizard 1), an ACF (Mystic Fire Knight), and one or two feats (SotAO and possibly Battle Blessing) to spellcasting...but you don't get a spell slot higher than level 1 until character level 15. I don't think I have to explain why this is going to keep your spellcasting from ever being impactful.

If you want the character to be effective at anything, you need to specialize. Pick one of your spellcasting classes (Wizard, Ranger, or Paladin), and make sure most of your levels advance that class' spellcasting, so that you get spell access when it's still relevant against level-appropriate encounters. If you want to make an awesome Mount/Animal Companion, invest more levels and feats into beefing it up; otherwise it's just going to die if you ever let it anywhere near combat. If you want to be an effective archer, devote character resources to making it work...you currently have absolutely no ways of improving your damage with a bow built into your character, which means you will never output relevant damage per round as an archer.

[DEMON]

It's supposed to be a variation on my Wiz 1 / Rgr 19 SotAO build, which I'm very fond off (since it's basically a Ranger with beefed up caster level and some back up lvl 1 spells).

Since SotAO works with both Ranger and Paladin levels and these classes have their own multiclass feat, I tried to combine them into a single, sorta jack-of-all-trades (not really all trades, just Rangery+Paladiny trades) build. Elf seems like a decent choice for the substitution levels it provides to all 3 base classes involved.

The pathetic spell progression of both classes kind of kills the effort, since by leveling both, I never actually get much spellcasting (and I realize there's not much need for Battle Casting with only 3 lvl 1 spells on the Paladin side), but I can't think of a better way to utilize Devoted Tracker and SotAO on a single build.

Looking at the build now, it does kinda seem to do a whole lot of nothing for most of its career with a little bit of something near the end :smallconfused: Despite having a great caster level for all the spells and a combined AC/Mount...

Oh well, that's what I get for trying to follow 2 distinct concepts without specializing on any (Halfling Outrider ubermount builds would gimp the spellcasting even further).

Heh, if I thought wild empathy is anything worth pursuing, I might try for Wiz 1 / Pal 1 / Rgr 18, ditching the mount and stacking the Paladin and Ranger levels for wild empathy bonus and the damage on a single Smite Evil attempt :smallbiggrin: Or vice versa, which would probably be a better option.

[ILM]

I'd probably go for Wiz 1/ Rgr 1/ Pal 17/ Beast 1 instead, so you get much better mileage out of Battle Blessing (which I think only works on paladin spells, not wiz spells prepared in paladin slots). Plus, I prefer the Paladin's class features and you get a beefier mount. Honestly, if you're not making at least a decent effort at optimizing your mount, Devoted Tracker is a waste of a feat.

edit: and I'm really not sure about that Wizard level. Sure, you get high-CL spells but they're only level 1... The only way this is relevant after level, like, 4 is if you specialize in using staffs: Wiz level to let you use them without UMD, and boosted CL which you can apply to the spells you cast from the staff. Still a pretty MAD build though...

[DEMON]

edit: and I'm really not sure about that Wizard level. Sure, you get high-CL spells but they're only level 1... The only way this is relevant after level, like, 4 is if you specialize in using staffs: Wiz level to let you use them without UMD, and boosted CL which you can apply to the spells you cast from the staff. Still a pretty MAD build though...

The wizard level is a force multiplier. You buff the arcane caster level with SotAO, then add that number to your Paladin and Ranger CLs thanks to Shooting Star / Mystic Fire Knight substitution levels 4.

The above build, at level 20, would have a Wizard CL 19, Paladin CL 24 and Ranger CL 29 for their respective spells.

Right now I'm tinkering with a Wiz 1 / Rgr 4 / Pal 15 build. Thus I could save a feat slot on Skill Focus.

[thethird]

Mmh... What about using southern magician with:

Martial Wizard 1 (for prereqs) / Cleric X (x being the necessary levels you need to take without using cheese for early entry) / Prestige Paladin 4 / Prestige Ranger 4 / Geomancer Y (as much as you can fit advancing Cleric)

You can obviously lower the prestige paladin and the prestige ranger to less levels.

[Rebel7284]

Is Mystic Ranger on the table? Much faster spell progression is nice.

[DEMON]

Is Mystic Ranger on the table? Much faster spell progression is nice.

No Dragon Mag material, so no Mystic Ranger either.

It also can't benefit from the CL boost (no animal companion to trade for Shooting Star 4), but with a full caster level it wouldn't be that much of a problem.


Martial Wizard 1 (for prereqs) / Cleric X (x being the necessary levels you need to take without using cheese for early entry) / Prestige Paladin 4 / Prestige Ranger 4 / Geomancer Y (as much as you can fit advancing Cleric)

You can obviously lower the prestige paladin and the prestige ranger to less levels.

Except for the few unique spells (or not so few, if splatbook spells allowed), you wouldn't really have any Ranger or Paladin spells to benefit from Battle Blessing & Shooting Star / Mystic Fire CL boosts.

[thethird]

Except for the few unique spells (or not so few, if splatbook spells allowed), you wouldn't really have any Ranger or Paladin spells to benefit from Battle Blessing & Shooting Star / Mystic Fire CL boosts.

That's where Geomancer comes in to save the day :smallcool: