AC or Time Stop?

[BettyBlack]

Hey, so not sure if this is the right place for this, it's mostly an optimization question.

I'm doing a Swiftblade build, and I really like having high AC. What I would really like to take a level of Battle Dancer for that sweet charisma AC bonus. Unfortunately, I have a rule about not losing more than four caster levels on gish builds because I recover the CL with Practiced Spellcaster. So this means that if I take the AC bonus, I lose out of the Swiftblade's tenth level Time Stop ability. I'm sure that capstone must be better than the +10 AC I'll be getting from Battle Dancer, but I'm still having difficulty making the decision. Thoughts? Tips? Any other way I can get CHA to AC?

Anyways, here's the build as it stands now:

Note: 28 point buy, two flaws, and the DM is allowing extra feats at levels 1, 5, 10, and 15. These flaws must not directly impact the build and can be used for prerequisites and the like. The build is to level 16. After Swiftblade I'll be going into Abjurant Champ. I won't be using spring attack much, instead I'll be using the ability to move then full attack to deliver arcane strike-charged four-armed multiweapon fighting attacks. The two level adjustment is bought off using DM's system and I get 200,000 gold.

Obah-Blessed Human (+2 LA)

Battle Dancer 1/Arcane Sorcerer 6/Swiftblade 9

str 10 = 8 +2
dex 18 = 14 +4
con 18 = 16 +2
int 12 = 12
wis 6 = 6
cha 24 = 16 +4 +4[lvls]


Feats:
Shaky [flaw]
Inattentive [flaw]
Combat Casting [flaw feat]
Weapon Finesse [flaw feat]
-
Practiced Spellcaster [level 1]
Arcane Strike [level 3]
Versitile Spellcaster [level 6]
Improved Initiative [level 9]
Quick Draw [level 12]
Improved Multiweapon Fighting [level 15]
-
Militia [human]
Multi-Weapon Fighting [obah-blessed]
-
Expeditious Dodge [flavour 1]
Mobility [flavour 5]
Endurance [flavour 10]
Steadfast Determination [flavour 15]



Items (198750):
Slippers of Battledancing -33750
Gloves of Dexterity +6 -36000
Bracers of Health +6 -36000
Cloak of Charisma +6 -36000
Transmuting Rapier (4) -32000
Ring of Protection -8000
Ring of Resistance -9000
Amulet of Natural Armour -8000


Estemated AC 40 = 10 +7[dex] +10[cha] +4[mage armor] +2[natural] +2[deflection] +1[haste dodge] +2[class dodge] +2[expeditious dodge]
Estemated Init 26 = +7[dex] +10[cha] +4[feat] +5[nerve skitter]

[Zanos]

Swiftblade 9 is probably the best ability of the class, and is a reasonable breaking point. The 10th level ability is decent, but not great, and that level doesn't progress casting. I'd rather just be able to cast time stop normally and have more casting levels.

You might want to consider not taking swiftblade past 6 or so so you can still get 9th level spells as a sorc. You can get Cha to AC for two feats, Improved Unarmed Strike, and then Ascetic Mage.
Ascetic Mage lets your Sorc and Monk levels stack to determine your monk AC bonus, and use your Cha for their ac bonus instead of wis. The feat doesn't actually require monk levels though, just IUS and spontaneously casting 2nd level arcane spells.

Your feats:
I wouldn't bother with weapon finesse. Just use a decent polymorph spell and abuse it's size/high str score to wield a large weapon, or use it's natural attacks.
Combat casting isn't very good. The DCs for concentration in 3.5 are low. Just put a point into the skill every level and you should be fine.
Quick Draw can be replaced by a really cheap weapon crystal(Least crystal of returning, I think), and still isn't very good.
If you aren't attached to Obah blessed you could probably dump that too. You'll get more damage out of just having a massive polymorphed str score. It will also save you cash on having to buy four different weapons.

[BettyBlack]

Swiftblade 9 is probably the best ability of the class, and is a reasonable breaking point. The 10th level ability is decent, but not great, and that level doesn't progress casting. I'd rather just be able to cast time stop normally and have more casting levels.

You might want to consider not taking swiftblade past 6 or so so you can still get 9th level spells as a sorc. You can get Cha to AC for two feats, Improved Unarmed Strike, and then Ascetic Mage.
Ascetic Mage lets your Sorc and Monk levels stack to determine your monk AC bonus, and use your Cha for their ac bonus instead of wis. The feat doesn't actually require monk levels though, just IUS and spontaneously casting 2nd level arcane spells.

Your feats:
I wouldn't bother with weapon finesse. Just use a decent polymorph spell and abuse it's size/high str score to wield a large weapon, or use it's natural attacks.
Combat casting isn't very good. The DCs for concentration in 3.5 are low. Just put a point into the skill every level and you should be fine.
Quick Draw can be replaced by a really cheap weapon crystal(Least crystal of returning, I think), and still isn't very good.
If you aren't attached to Obah blessed you could probably dump that too. You'll get more damage out of just having a massive polymorphed str score. It will also save you cash on having to buy four different weapons.

My group isn't overly optimized, and the DM has asked us to stay away from 9th level casting, so getting to that spell level isn't really necessary or technically allowed. I'll be dropping the four levels regardless, my question is more whether the time stop or AC is more worth it.
Polymorph is also a big no-no, so the only way I might pick it up is simply for use with Minor Shapeshift.
I disagree with your reading of Ascetic Mage, I'm pretty sure you need the monk bonus in order to convert it to charisma.
Combat Casting is a prerequisite for Abjurant Champion. But I agree that quick draw can be replaced, it's mostly a decent placeholder.
Obah-Blessed is kind of the central part of the build. As I said, polymorph shenanigans are banned outright, so the idea is to have a bunch of powered up attacks every round with the Swiftblade 9 ability to pounce and cast extra spells.
Sorry if I'm sounding negative or whatever, and thanks for the response, but I'm sorta looking for different answers.

[Thanatosia]

Ascetic Mage lets your Sorc and Monk levels stack to determine your monk AC bonus, and use your Cha for their ac bonus instead of wis. The feat doesn't actually require monk levels though, just IUS and spontaneously casting 2nd level arcane spells.
You can indeed take the Feat without Monk Levels. However, if you do so, you only gain the ability to sacrifice spell slots for attack & damage bonuses on unarmed attacks. The part of the feat that gives the AC boost reads "If you have levels in sorcerer and monk, those levels stack for the purpose of determining your AC bonus." No Monk levels, no AC boost.

[Lerondiel]

My group isn't overly optimized, and the DM has asked us to stay away from 9th level casting, so getting to that spell level isn't really necessary or technically allowed. I'll be dropping the four levels regardless, my question is more whether the time stop or AC is more worth it.
Polymorph is also a big no-no, so the only way I might pick it up is simply for use with Minor Shapeshift.
I disagree with your reading of Ascetic Mage, I'm pretty sure you need the monk bonus in order to convert it to charisma.
Combat Casting is a prerequisite for Abjurant Champion. But I agree that quick draw can be replaced, it's mostly a decent placeholder.
Obah-Blessed is kind of the central part of the build. As I said, polymorph shenanigans are banned outright, so the idea is to have a bunch of powered up attacks every round with the Swiftblade 9 ability to pounce and cast extra spells.
Sorry if I'm sounding negative or whatever, and thanks for the response, but I'm sorta looking for different answers.

I have to smile at the idea of no 9th levels or polymorph but the DM allows Swiftblade ...and with a BattleDancer dip :)

I guess it comes down to how you play...extra AC is nice but remember (with Grt Mage Armour & quickened extended Shield) AbChamp4 will add 14 more to AC. Elusive Target is an extremely tempting feat for this build too.

But for me I couldnt pass up the ability to timestop and throw a crazy amount of buffs on eg invisibility/stoneskin/bite of the werebear/ironguard/dolorous blow/true strike/etc

[BettyBlack]

I have to smile at the idea of no 9th levels or polymorph but the DM allows Swiftblade ...and with a BattleDancer dip :)

I guess it comes down to how you play...extra AC is nice but remember (with Grt Mage Armour & quickened extended Shield) AbChamp4 will add 14 more to AC. Elusive Target is an extremely tempting feat for this build too.

But for me I couldnt pass up the ability to timestop and throw a crazy amount of buffs on eg invisibility/stoneskin/bite of the werebear/ironguard/dolorous blow/true strike/etc

The DM is mostly just counting on the party not to pull crazy cheesy shenanigans. For example we don't really use anything like divine metamagic, incanatrix, or wild shapey all powerful druids.

I did forget about greater mage armour, and I suppose casting AC boosting spells is a lot easier with the extra actions, so those are good points.

I don't quite see why Elusive Target would be good? I would need to go back to the standard dodge feat and all the abilities seem really situational.

[Zanos]

You can indeed take the Feat without Monk Levels. However, if you do so, you only gain the ability to sacrifice spell slots for attack & damage bonuses on unarmed attacks. The part of the feat that gives the AC boost reads "If you have levels in sorcerer and monk, those levels stack for the purpose of determining your AC bonus." No Monk levels, no AC boost.

A monks belt fixes that if that is your reading.

[Thanatosia]

A monks belt fixes that if that is your reading.
Arguable, but it requires some wildly inconsistant rule cherry-picking.

First, you have to interpret the ability to add Wis to AC as a part of the Monk AC bonus ability and not a seperate ability, under the logic that it's part of the paragraph describing the monk's AC bonus. If it's a seperate ability and not a subset of the Monk AC bonus ability, then the Monk's belt will not grant the power because the item's description makes no specific mention of the wis to ac bonus functionality.

Then, while at the same time holding the position that the Wis to AC power is a subset of the Monk AC bonus ability, you have to simultaneously rule that the power of the feat to convert a wis bonus to ac to a cha bonus to ac is NOT a subset of the ability of the feat that allows Monk & Sorceror levels to stack, even though it's writtain within that abilities paragraph. Because if you do not treat them as seperate abilities, then you won't be able to activate that portion of the feat because of the explicit requirement for monk levels.

So you got 2 'sub abilities' described in a similar style, but you have to read it one way in one instance and the other way in the other to 'cherry pick' your logic towards making the feat and monk belt work together. I can't see any way to be consistant in the reading and make it work, you just have to use a inconistant double standard to get the result you want, which any DM who does not really want to make it work should probably shoot down. Personally, I do believe both abilities are sub-abilities, so yes, adding wis to ac is part of the monk ac bonus ability and is confered by the monk's belt, but the ability to convert that bonus from wis to cha via ascetic mage is not activated unless you have actual monk levels.

[LTwerewolf]

Be aware practiced spellcaster increases your effective level for the spells you can cast, but does not increase the maximum level you can cast. If you lose 4 caster levels, you do not get 9th level spells.



This does not affect your spells per day or spells known, it only increases your caster level, which would help you penetrate SR and increase the duration and other effects of your spells.

[BettyBlack]

Arguable, but it requires some wildly inconsistant rule cherry-picking.

I disagree with the way you've read it. It refers to the monk's AC bonus, and for the purposes of the +1 or whatever your interpretation may be true. But when it refers to having a wisdom bonus to AC, it only lists monk as an option. Another way you could get a wisdom bonus to AC is with a monks belt. Bt still two feats and a belt slot are not worth CHA to AC.


Be aware practiced spellcaster increases your effective level for the spells you can cast, but does not increase the maximum level you can cast. If you lose 4 caster levels, you do not get 9th level spells.

That is both obvious and not what I was asking.