What spells/feats are best for a martial-style spell caster.

[SangoProduction]

By "martial-style spell caster", I mean a sorcerer who prefers to get in to melee, who's eventually going in to Swiftblade.

Are there any spells and feats in particular I should be taking in to consideration.

General desire: light utility (see invisible, silent image, and the like), mostly buffs, maybe touch spells, preferably melee touch spells.

Feats considered right now: preqreqs for Swiftblade, and Extend Spell...so that I am not casting buffs in the middle of combat unless I really need to.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Depends, what other classes were you looking at before and after swiftblade? What kind of melee did you have envisioned; two hander, two weapons, natural weapons?

The only obvious thing that comes to mind is smiting spell.

[SangoProduction]

For the class after swiftblade, Abjurant Champion...possibly. Two handed for weapons, likely. (At least mechanically. I'd likely fluff it as a rapier or some such. I just like how it looks, and my GM seems lenient in such matters [though I still have all the restrictions of two-handed fighting].)
Is it even possible to cast with 2 hands on your weapon? I mean, reasonably, you'd be able to take your hand off to do the casting, and then use the weapon.

Smiting Spell seems kinda decent. Later on at least, when I have a better BAB relative to my level.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Two handed beater on a sorcerer/swiftblade/abjurant champ.

Cover mobility with the armor enhancement to save yourself a feat since you're a little tight. Take desert wind or expeditious dodge to cover that since they're both strictly superior to regular dodge unless you need the targeting ability from dodge for other stuff. For the remaining 4, you've already picked extend spell and that's a good one. I'll repeat smiting spell as a generally solid option. You might also consider arcane strike and power attack. Nothing like big hits for big damage, eh? Alternately, occular and quicken are good for turning spells that aren't abjurations into swift action spells. Arcane preparation is also useful for putting multiple metamagics on one spell and gaining access to sanctified spells.

For spells, shield and luminous armor (remember arcane preparation) are always good for an abjurant champion. Vampiric touch and the usual X grasp spells (shocking, rusting, etc) all have their uses, especially with smiting spell. Don't neglect the usual movement boosts; fly, for example, or alter self if you swing that way. Wings of cover are a must for pretty much any sorcerer. Some good BFC spells serve you as well as they do any melee ally you might have; black tentacles comes to mind along with the wall of X spells. Common boosters are obvious enough too; bulls strength, bear's endurance, etc. You might consider picking up arcane disciple for the competition domain if you roll good stats or have a big enough point buy since divine power and righteous might are hard to beat for a non-transformational buff. Haste is already a given.

The polymorph question; this is always a very, very strong option for any caster that wants to melee, no matter the build, but it rubs some people the wrong way precisely because it is such a disproportionately powerful option. If you do grab it, make sure you get a sizing and/or mouthpick enhancement to your weapon of choice.

[SangoProduction]

I'm not convinced on Arcane Strike, since I am already going Sorcerer, if I am also using Smiting spell.

Acid Splash at level 1 = 1d3 damage, vs Arcane strike for level 1, is only 1d4 damage
Magic Missile at level 2 = upwards of 5d4+5 (average 17), vs 2d4
Hell...lol, magic missile with Smiting spell then outperforms it until spell level 7 at 7d4 (average 17.5), by which time you could be disintegrating them with your sword.
Then again, why not just cast the magic missiles alone? Because sword spells are cooler (also magic missile isn't incredibly impressive, though solid for a level 1 spell, so if it's a meter stick for using up a level 7 spell slot..yeah).

Hmm... I'm just plain skeptical of Arcane Strike, because it really, really sucks.

Otherwise I really like your suggestions. How does Arcane Disciple work if you don't prepare spells? Can you just use it as many times as you wish, because it only prevents multiple preparations. I honestly don't know. It's probably more reasonable to say each spell can only be cast once per day....but it does use up your known spells, which is quite valuable for sorcerers, so...I don't know.

(Clearly this isn't going to be truly optimized, by design, thanks for realizing that, and helping me immensely.)

Are there good 2-H bludgeoning weapons?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Reread smiting spell, touch range spells only.

Arcane strike -and- power attack. You're using arcane strike for bonus to-hit for feeding PA. It's not +1d4, it's +1/1d4 or +1d4+2.

You're likely to cap at 8ths (4 levels lost to swiftblade) so that's 8d4+16 or about 36 damage on average unless you decide to keep part of the attack bonus.

Arcane disciple explicitly states that spontaneous casters only get to cast those spells once per day and, yes, they do eat one of your spells known if you want to cast them natively. However, runestaves are a thing.

[DarkSonic1337]

Arcane strike also applies to all of your attacks for the whole round, and if you want you can burn multiple low level slots for more damage (unfortunately the attack bonuses won't stack). It's better when you have a ton of low level spells and lack the action economy to really spend all of them.

[SangoProduction]

Oh, I didn't see that bit about increasing your attack bonus. That's suddenly quite a large deal better.
Eh. Right. Also missed that bit about Smiting being touch attack only, but it has the same average as Shocking Grasp. Oh well. Thanks for pointing that out though, that could have been embarrassing.

Dark Sonic: Are you sure damage bonuses from the same source can stack? I thought they couldn't.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Oh, I didn't see that bit about increasing your attack bonus. That's suddenly quite a large deal better.
Eh. Right. Also missed that bit about Smiting being touch attack only, but it has the same average as Shocking Grasp. Oh well. Thanks for pointing that out though, that could have been embarrassing.

NP


Dark Sonic: Are you sure damage bonuses from the same source can stack? I thought they couldn't.

It's a point of contention. Unless your game typically swings high on the power scale, I'd assume the DM will rule that only the highest bonus applies. You could also rule that you roll as many sets as you choose and take the best damage value from them.