Early Sorcadin Feats

[DeAnno]

Assume that a player is going to do something with an early skeleton like Paladin 2/Sorcerer 4/Spellsword 1/X

Many people on this forum probably know this as a "Sorcadin", commonly referenced as the definitive spontaneous arcane gish. Certainly, from the middle levels onto the later levels, your spells give you a lot of strong options and the build is quite viable. However, when contemplating the early levels, I've found myself a bit disquieted; there isn't much to do, you aren't doing it very well, and additionally you are very MAD, possibly 5-stat MAD, without much to show for it. Never fear however, because the Sorcadin has feats!

Assuming you're a human, there are four feats from 1-6 which are either not spoken for at all or barely needed. Assuming you're going with Abjurant Champion at some point you'll need Combat Casting, but that still leaves three, and Combat Casting can be taken late, at 6. What can be done to make levels 1-5 most playable without the spent resources being worthless later on? Certainly Power Attack is good in this regard, but there are still two other feats, or possibly a feat and a race, that could be used profitably. Pay special attention to things that might synergize well with Wraithstrike and Whirling Blade, two spells that are both low lying Sorcadin fruit.

[macdaddy]

For a Sorcadin, you need to use all your feats appropriately. You actually don't get that many, and cannot afford to waste them.

1. Power Attack, Combat Reflexes
3. [OPEN] suggestions are Practiced Spell Caster, Travel Devotion, or Law Devotion
6. Combat Casting (pre-req)
9. Arcane Strike (stacks nicely with power attack)
12. Minor Shapeshift (free healing)
15. Robilar's Gambit (attacks of opportunity)
18. Divine Might (extra use of turnings and cha bonus)

At the lower levels, you use a reach weapon (i.e. Glaive) and attack from behind the fighter or Druid's animal companion. Combat reflexes helps out here, giving you some level of battle field control. Once you hit around 7th level, you can wear some basic armor and can use wraithstrike for max power attack blows. But its really at 8th level (3rd level spells, 2nd attack, bonuses to shield spell, etc) that you really begin to not be a burden on the party.

For spells, one that doesn't usually make it on the Sorcadin list, Benign Transposition, is incredibly useful and continues to be able to make a BIG impact on combats even at higher levels.

[Troacctid]

It's actually not that bad if you have a decent Strength score. Paladins are quite strong early on just by virtue of their proficiencies and large hit dice. Wear heavy armor and a shield and a martial weapon--you'll have high AC and saves and deal solid damage, which is all you really need to survive the early game.

For feats, I like Nymph's Kiss. You're a Cha-based good-aligned character who is starved for skill points, so it's a good fit. Shape Soulmeld is another good one--pick the astral vambraces to get DR/magic, making you stupidly resilient against low-CR threats, and then take Open Lesser Chakra later to bind it to your arms and get all-day flight or, you know, whatever, there's a bunch of other abilities on the list too.

Edit: If you have the Dex for it, then Combat Reflexes is good too, as mentioned above, though I don't know about those turn undead feats, since taking Paladin to 4th level seems pretty sketchy.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Probably not as good as Shape Soulmeld, but you can do fun things with Bind Vestige, or dip into psionic focus things if you're naturally psionic (primordial half-giant, LA buyoff? you get nice skill points and charisma). If you're getting Practiced Spellcaster for +2 caster levels, be an illumian with the krau sigil instead.

That's if you want things to do, as in, choices. You could always get Improved Unarmed Strike and Ascetic Mage, to add your charisma to AC. That's not very interesting, though.

[macdaddy]

though I don't know about those turn undead feats, since taking Paladin to 4th level seems pretty sketchy.

You never take paladin beyond 2nd level, ever. You get turn undead once you move into Sacred Exorcist at 13th level. Until then, its a once per day thing. But because of the higher level requirements on things like Robilars and Divine might requiring turn undead, you can't take them until late.

[jiriku]

If retraining is available, I'd consider Craft Wondrous Item at 3rd level if your party and group mix support it. When you are using party downtime to nearly double everyone's WBL by crafting gear for them, I think few people will accuse you of being a burden on the party, especially since CWI ensures early access to build-essential magic items granting save bonuses and ability bonuses. With a druid/wizard/cleric in the party, you need not use your spells known on the prerequisite spells -- just have one of them prepare the spell and assist you with the item creation.

Likewise, Craft Wand at 6th level will net you as many wands as you like of essential 1st-level spells like benign transposition, nerveskitter, (swift) expeditious retreat, wraithstrike, and whirling blade. With 1-2 wand chambers, you can have one or two of these always in hand even while armed and ready for combat.

Later, when you need those slots for build-critical feats, retrain them out and keep the items you made. Profit!

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Always go for the Ancestral Relic Runestaff (www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?267805-Sorcerer-Handbook#4) trick. Preferably make it an Elvencraft Composite Longbow with three wand chambers. You can put a partially charged Wand of Wings of Cover in that, which per the Rules Compendium is still an immediate action to activate, and use it to your heart's content as long as you have at least one Sorcerer level.

It's preferable to use an Illumian with the Naenhoon runeword for this build, simply because you can Persist two spells per day once you've taken Sacred Exorcist. Note that you can put Dismissal on the above runestaff and use Versatile Spellcaster to spend two 3rd level spell slots to cast it, thus qualifying for that two levels sooner and without spending your highest level spell known.

So ideally, that would be a Paladin 2/ Sorcerer 4/ Spellsword 1/ Abjurant Champion 3/ Sacred Exorcist 1/ Abjurant Champion 2/ Sacred Exorcist 7, which requires Ancestral Relic, Combat Casting, Versatile Spellcaster, Extend Spell, and Persistent Spell by level 11. If you have two flaws you only have one available feat before 12th level, so either Practiced Spellcaster or Power Attack. Your 12th level feat should of course be Minor Shapeshift, and by the time you get your 15th level feat you can have Persistent Bite of the Werebear which gives you Power Attack for its duration, but there are better buffs to persist (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?410245-How-can-they-nerf-you-Can-we-count-the-ways&p=19126868#5).

So for the above ideal build, you're looking at the following, considering prerequisites:

1. Combat Casting
Flaw. Extend Spell
Flaw. Persistent Spell or Power Attack
3. Ancestral Relic
6. Versatile Spellcaster
9. Practiced Spellcaster or Persistent Spell
12. Minor Shapeshift
15. Selective Spell
18. Power Attack or Practiced Spellcaster