The Staff-Thwacker

[JNAProductions]

I want my Wizard to be the best at whacking people with his staff. These are the only requirements:

Level 1 is Evocationist Wizard (Banned Enchantment and Divination or Illusion)
Human

Stats are as follows:

Strength 13
Dexterity 14
Constitution 15
Intelligence 17
Wisdom 12
Charisma 14

Or 36 point buy.

Current character sheet: http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=288015

[Troacctid]

If those are your requirements, then your build is literally impossible, as you cannot ban Divination.

[JNAProductions]

I can adjust that. Why is Divination so crucial?

Probably swap it for Illusion.

[AvatarVecna]

I can adjust that. Why is Divination so crucial?

Probably swap it for Illusion.

It's not, it's just literally illegal by RAW to ban it.

EDIT: Also, your thread name is incredibly amusing.

[JNAProductions]

Oh. It's houseruled to be okay, you just get Read Magic anyway. (I think) Got it confirmed. I can ban Divination all I like.

Also, thank you!

[Morof Stonehands]

Dragon Magazine #338 has an article about wizard staffs. They gain enhancement bonuses as you go up in level, let you deliver touch spells, and gives other feats fo increasing the staffs power further.

[AmbientRaven]

Does it have to be wizard? Magus have a staff using archetype

[JNAProductions]

It does, at least at level 1.

[DMVerdandi]

Is this 3.5 or pathfinder?

For now, assuming it's 3.5, One thing you can do to make yourself better at staff stuff is collecting spells that are going to make you better at it.

Good buffs to have? Greater Mighty Whallop, Magic Weapon/Greater, Weapon of Energy, Weapon of impact, and most of the ray spells.Get some decent personal buffs too. Start off with animalistic power, move to draconic might, then chasing perfection. Haste is fantastic.

Build as wizard 5/Incantatrix 10/War weaver 5


Get Smiting spell, and use it on whichever ray spells you decide to learn and whack people with them.
Also get Arcane strike later.
See if you can research getting divine power as an arcane spell.

[Inevitability]

Most weapon buff spells do not have a saving throw or attack rolls. Perhaps consider putting most of your points in strength and constitution, keeping your intelligence just high enough to cast your spells?

[Sian]

Eilservs School (Drow of the Underdark) would be quite handy.

[JNAProductions]

Is this 3.5 or pathfinder?

For now, assuming it's 3.5, One thing you can do to make yourself better at staff stuff is collecting spells that are going to make you better at it.

Good buffs to have? Greater Mighty Whallop, Magic Weapon/Greater, Weapon of Energy, Weapon of impact, and most of the ray spells.Get some decent personal buffs too. Start off with animalistic power, move to draconic might, then chasing perfection. Haste is fantastic.

Build as wizard 5/Incantatrix 10/War weaver 5


Get Smiting spell, and use it on whichever ray spells you decide to learn and whack people with them.
Also get Arcane strike later.
See if you can research getting divine power as an arcane spell.

This is indeed 3.5. Could you include what book these classes and spells are from? I don't have very good system knowledge.

Also, if it's possible to make this concept come true with Core-only, that'd be the best.

[Troacctid]

Not much support for staff-thwacking wizards in core, I'm afraid, unless you count Two-Weapon Fighting to attack with both ends of it, and I don't. There is Shillelagh, if you're a druid, but I don't believe there's a core way for a wizard to get it unless your DM takes a permissive view of the spell research rules.

[JNAProductions]

That's okay. I'm willing to leave core, it's just the simplest to access for me.

[Mato]

Just some information to consider.

Entangling staff (spc, wizard 4th / druid 3rd)
When you hit an opponent you can start a free grapple attempt with a +8 bonus, if you succeed it deals another 2d6 damage and you can choose to release them which leaves then entangled and allows you to finish your full attack, potentially scoring several increments of the bonus construction damage.

Brambles (spc, cleric/druid 2nd)
Use a wand hilt (cad) to add it to your quaterstaff so you can use the wand without needing a free hand. The spell grants a +1 enhancement bonus to attack and damage per caster level, maximum +10 at the 10th level. Very very powerful, scaling enhancement bonuses four times faster than magic weapon but it's duration is shorter, it's a good candidate for quicken later on.

[Greater] mighty wallop (rotd, wizard 1st/3rd) / Shillelagh (core, druid 1st)
Increases the damage of your quarterstaff as if the size were increased.

Eilservs school (dotu, feat)
When using magical staffs you get an untyped bonus to damage rolls based on the number of remaining charges in the item divided by ten. And if you hit with both ends while using it as a double weapon you can cast a spell from the staff as a swift action but the spell must target you or the creature struck by both ends.

[Improved] Two weapon fighting (core, feat) gloves of the balanced hand (mic, gloves)
Reduces the penalties for two weapon fighting and grants an additional off hand attack. GTWF requires a three feat investment so it costs more than you will gain as a wizard, instead take TWF and use the gloves to access ITWF, two extra attacks for the cost one one feat, a much nicer alternative.

Spell storing (core, weapon enhancement)
Allows you to store a spell and cast it on a hit creature as a free action. You can use this for bonus damage, save-or-die/suck or even control effects.

[JNAProductions]

Okay, I'm going to broaden what I want a little bit-I'd simply like to be the best I can be at martial prowess.

[Keltest]

Okay, I'm going to broaden what I want a little bit-I'd simply like to be the best I can be at martial prowess.

That sounds suspiciously like a fighter.

[JNAProductions]

While still being a magic person.

I guess at this point, I'm just looking for a good gish.

[ExLibrisMortis]

The classic sorcadin: paladin 2/sorcerer 4/spellsword 1/abjurant champion 5/eldritch knight (or add a level of crusader and go Jade Phoenix Mage instead).
Divine gish: crusader 1/cleric 3/ordained champion 5/ruby knight vindicator 7, can add prestige paladin 2 if you like high saves, but you'll need to swap either casting to CHA or divine grace to WIS (the latter can be done with the Serenity feat).

Spellsword is from Complete Warrior, AbjChamp from Complete Mage, Crusader from Tome of Battle, JPM from ToB, OC from Complete Champion, RKV from ToB again, prestige paladin from Unearthed Arcana. The rest is core. You'll need to get your DM's permission to enter OC and RKV at the same time, but the fluff change is relatively minor.

[JNAProductions]

Except I need to start as a Wizard. That much is non-negotiable. (Or Archivist, but I would like to hew closer to core than not.)

[BioCharge]

A theoretically decent Gish using a base Wizard is Wiz 6/Swiftblade 2/Abjurant Champion 4/Swiftblade 8. Swiftblade is from the Wizard's archive (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070327) and rather powerful, so your DM may-or-may-not approve it, but it's a pretty good Gish. Ask your DM will allow an Exotic Weapon Proficiency to count for the prerequisites for Abj Champ and grab a Longstaff (CAdv), which is better than your base quarterstaff. Might as well as get that if you're going to burn a feat for proficiency.

[Sagetim]

core only? wizard/fighter/eldritch knight with high strength, moderate con, and just enough int to cast spells of whatever your max level is going to be.

Pick up weapon focus, two weapon fighting, improved two weapon fighting, and if you have enough fighter levels, weapon specialization. Greater two weapon fighting should be there too, I think. After all, Core is everything on the srd.

You'll probably want to enchant the heads of your staff to do different things, like +1 disruption on one head and +1 spell storing on the other. Spell store a vampiric touch and you can even save it for later by not hitting things with that staff head until you need the hp or what have you.

Your crowning moment will be when you can start using tenser's transformation to be a real staff wielding badass. And you're going to want to get mithral chain shirt at some point, with the twilight enchantment too (player's handbook 2 is core, after all).

If you have the feats and supporting modifiers, I think staffs can be used as tripping weapons. So abuse that to your advantage. And since you can swap between using it as a two handed weapon and a double weapon, you can have a little versatility in your attacks per round, attack bonus, and damage output per attack.

If you find yourself lacking a stick to beat things with, I think there are some spells that give you staffs to smack things with, like staff of air, or staff of earth, or whatever they're called. Is blackstaff a core spell? get blackstaff. I might be misremembering blackstaff.

Your main focus on spells is going to be selfishly buffing, so pick up extend spell and persistent spell early on. If I recall correctly, persistent spell does not require anything except extend spell, meaning you can pick it up as a first level feat if you're a human.

[JNAProductions]

That sounds like just what I need. All available on the SRD and not too complicated.

Any more details on the Wizard/Fighter/Eldritch Knight build?

Current character sheet: http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=288015

Also, would it be better to use my current statline or 36 point buy?

[Troacctid]

Swiftblade (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070327) and Knight Phantom (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050706a&page=4) are both available free online and are generally better than Eldritch Knight, due to having actual class features. I'd recommend one of those instead.

As far as your stats, they are worth 42 points, but they're not ideally distributed...14 Int is a little low, especially if you want to be casting spells that offer a save, and you don't really need Charisma for anything, so those points are mostly wasted, as are those two points that are lost upgrading from 14 to 15 Con.

[Sagetim]

Swiftblade (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070327) and Knight Phantom (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050706a&page=4) are both available free online and are generally better than Eldritch Knight, due to having actual class features. I'd recommend one of those instead.

As far as your stats, they are worth 42 points, but they're not ideally distributed...14 Int is a little low, especially if you want to be casting spells that offer a save, and you don't really need Charisma for anything, so those points are mostly wasted, as are those two points that are lost upgrading from 14 to 15 Con.

I think the implication is that he rolled those stats.

Wizard 5/ Fighter 1/ Eldritch knight 10, then either more fighter or wizard. If you go wizard 9/eldritch knight 10 you'll have level 18 wizard casting for spells per day, and need 19 int to cast 9th level spells. If you go fighter 5, you'll get more hp, a better bab, some more fighter feats, and only have wizard 14 for spells, meaning your final int score would only need to be 17 total. 14 int is fine in either of these cases, as your point wouldn't be to cast spells with a dc against other people, but rather buffing and so on.

[JNAProductions]

I did indeed roll these stats.

[Troacctid]

I'm personally a fan of Wizard 6/Swiftblade 10, using the Fighter bonus feat variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#wizard) from the SRD to get Dodge and Mobility. Grey Elf as your race covers the martial weapon proficiency requirement while conveniently giving you +2 to your Int.


I think the implication is that he rolled those stats.

I know, I got that, I was just remarking on their quality. If you're allowed to switch them around, I would definitely keep them and go 14/15/14/17/12/13. If they're locked in where they currently are, then I dunno, I'd have to think about it.

[JNAProductions]

I can swap them around.

I am sticking with human, though.

[Troacctid]

As a human you can just spend a feat on Martial Weapon Proficiency, which is acceptable, or take Human Paragon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/racialParagonClasses.htm#humanParagon), which is...a thing, I guess. Ruathar (from Races of the Wild) also gives you martial weapon proficiency without losing a feat slot or casting, so it's a pretty good option, although it will delay your Swiftblade entry if you're not using fractional BAB.