oh sublime chord(cl stacking) 3.5ed

[Menzath]

So I saw a build that used virtuoso with a prepared arcane caster(wizard) to qualify for sublime chord and then caster level stack with ultimate magus. I was wondering how abjurant champions 5th lvl ability applied to sublime chord( if all other caster level gains went to wizard) and if using other methods to buff BaB could we get a pre-epic level character with a caster level over 40 w/o using spells?

[Twurps]

I haven't seen the build you mention, nor have i done the math to answer your question. But first nitpick: Virtuoso won't qualify you for Sublime chord, as it doesn't really give you bardic music (it just advances it, if you already have it.) Not sure why you wouldn't just use bard to qualify though.

Also: Abjurant champion(5), Sublime chord(?) and Ultimate magus10 in one build. I would be surprised if you could fit it all in.

[Menzath]

Yeah the most levels of UM you could fit on are 8 I believe. And I suppose with arcane preperation you could qualify with a bard.

And whether virtuoso grants bardic music is a little ambiguous. It says "stacks with bard levels" well if we take that as addition in math without bard levels it would be 0+1=1 and no where do we need bard to qualify for virtuoso so that's also strange.

[AvatarVecna]

Sublime Chord and Ultimate Magus are easy to get on the same build...but squeezing in 5 levels of Abjurant Champion can get pretty absurd. If nothing else, this requires (at the bare minimum) 16 levels of PrCs, and virtually all PrCs are specifically designed to be impossible to enter prior to 5th level at the lowest (some even higher). To get all 3, we're gonna need some pretty serious early entry cheese...

[AvatarVecna]

Yeah the most levels of UM you could fit on are 8 I believe. And I suppose with arcane preperation you could qualify with a bard.

And whether virtuoso grants bardic music is a little ambiguous. It says "stacks with bard levels" well if we take that as addition in math without bard levels it would be 0+1=1 and no where do we need bard to qualify for virtuoso so that's also strange.

There's PrCs that advance spellcasting that don't require spellcasting to enter, but they generally have text indicating that they only advance your existing spellcasting (thus, if you don't have any existing spellcasting, you don't get the benefit). I'm gonna go see if Virtuoso has any such wording.

EDIT: Yeah, I thought so.


Virtuoso levels stack with bard levels for the purpose of determining the virtuoso’s daily uses of his bardic music abilities (if any) and the value of the bonus granted by inspire courage (if the virtuoso has that bardic music ability).
Yeah, levels in Virtuoso are added to your Bard level for these purposes, but only if you already have Bard levels. Otherwise, you get jack diddly.

Also, I just learned that diddly is apparently a word my spellcheck doesn't disapprove of, so that's interesting.

[Menzath]

Huh I guess if we go with a caster other than bard we may have to find some other way to cheese bardic music, doable but what a pain.
And getting 4 levels of abjurant champion pre 11 isn't to hard.

Oh yeah I completely forgot about prestige bard. Have to have a look through that. One reason why I would go wizard over bard is obviously spell list. That's pretty huge.

Any other thoughts on how to squeeze more caster levels in?

[AvatarVecna]

Huh I guess if we go with a caster other than bard we may have to find some other way to cheese bardic music, doable but what a pain.
And getting 4 levels of abjurant champion pre 11 isn't to hard.

Oh yeah I completely forgot about prestige bard. Have to have a look through that. One reason why I would go wizard over bard is obviously spell list. That's pretty huge.

Any other thoughts on how to squeeze more caster levels in?

Generally, I go Bard 1/Wizard 8/Ultimate Magus 1/Sublime Chord 1/Ultimate Magus +9, but squeezing Abjurant Champion into there is gonna be interesting. At best, I could maybe squeeze it in at the end, with something like this...

Bard 1/Wizard 4/Ultimate Magus 5/Sublime Chord 1/Ultimate Magus +5/Abjurant Champion 4

...but that misses out on the Abjurant Champion capstone. There's probably a more elegant way to mix everything, but that's what I've got for now.