3.5 SRD Only Gish Attempt

[IratusAngelus]

Alright, so I am attempting to create something that is going to be able to run with the rest of the group in a sandbox/living type setting, but is also going to be fun to RP. The idea is someone who is a bit more focused on the spellcasting side of it than melee, but would be able to handle their own in a duel as well. Here are the stats so far:


Human
Battle Sorc lv1

Str: 14
Dex: 16
Con: 12
Int: 14
Wis: 9
Cha: 16

What I am envisioning here is Battle Sorc/Eldritch Knight and then maybe some Duelist to give it that flavor? What do you guys think?

[Eldariel]

...Duelist for flavor? You can play a blade bravo or whatever without actually taking levels in the class. For what you're doing, those levels don't really give much. You are making a spellcaster/warrior, not a warrior. Every level in even Wizard (or some other ½ BAB class) gets ½ BAB while every warrior level gets 0 casting levels. Thus, even Wizard levels are +1½ total while e.g. Duelist levels are just +1 total on your classes. Thus, you should probably minimise the numbers of non-caster levels you take if you want to get as good at both as possible.

In SRD only Battle Sorcerer means you'll basically have 1-2 spells known on the levels you mostly want to be casting. There are no efficient means to expand upon your spell list. Further, Eldritch Knight requires proficiency in all martial weapons while Battle Sorcerer only gets 1 and thus you'd need to take 1 level in some warrior class to enter anyways. Thus, I recommend against it unless you think you'd enjoy doing the same thing every fight - and even there, having more buffs or whatever is probably preferable. Wizard can prepare different spells every day and normal Sorcerer knows at least a couple: Battle Sorcerer without access to items granting new spells known has a hard time.


I can't tell what the stat generation method is but you definitely want more Constitution. You will be in melee and you will have poor hit dice so you really want Con for HP. More importantly, Polymorph can replace your physical stats but your HP is still derived off your base Con so it's the most important of your physicals.

My own choice would be Ranger 1/Wizard 6/Eldritch Knight 10. It's hard to make a Gish solid in SRD-only, but that's about as good as it gets - plays out like a straight caster for most of the early levels (that is, prepare battlefield control spells and attack with weapons the rest of the time), but by the time you get a couple of levels in Eldritch Knight you'll be looking at a decent combination of spells and physical attacks, plus a set of great buff spells. 4th level spells in particular are huge with stuff like Polymorph, Greater Invisibility, etc. granting you some very potent buffs. If the game still continues, 2 more levels of Wizard (or any Wizard PRC; Loremaster, Archmage or so) lands you at 9th level spells and 1 more of Ranger at 16 BAB for the 4th iterative attack. Ranger is nice because it gives you a lot of skills and access to Ranger Wands (including Wand of Cure Light Wounds - means you can cover out-of-combat healing yourself), plus some generic utility and good BAB + 8 HD. Getting 4x(6+Int) allows you to max out great many skills.

You could use Martial Wizard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#wizard) for an extra feat or two and Domain Wizard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#wizardVariantDomainWiz ard) for extra slots if you can't bear to specialize.

[IratusAngelus]

Thank you, Eldariel. That was really informative. Sadly, I am not a great character builder, so I have to rely on others to give insight like this, so I don't end up with a character who is then simply useless. The setting revolves around a major city, so I'll probably use the variant Urban Ranger. Then likely Domain Wizard, though... will I be abusing the transformations with this build? Or should I stick with my natural form and buff myself? Deciding between Transmutation or Anti-magic.

[Troacctid]

It would actually be much more efficient to go with cleric. The chassis is naturally gishy, you can get free Weapon Focus from the War domain, and there are a lot of good buff spells on the list.

You can also do very well with psionics, using psychic warrior or Illithid Slayer Slayer of Generic Non-Copyrighted Psionic Creatures Who May Or May Not Eat Brains.

[IratusAngelus]

I completely agree with you, Troacctid. In fact, if it wasn't imperative to the character, I would have went Cleric, naturally. However, being an Arcane caster is kind of the whole basis of this character. I've already done some rather fun Gishy stuff in the past with Cleric/Monk/Paladin levels that ended up fairly powerful.

[Pluto!]

I don't hate Battle Sorcerer if the SRD's the only thing on the table.

It has a tough enough chassis to be playable as a spell-capable melee dude from level 1 to level 20 and its spellcasting is better than popular builds like the Sorcadin (Paladin 2/Sorcerer 4/[Full Casting PrCs] 14) -- even more so if Eldritch Knight is filling those PrC slots), and it has fewer issues with CL if AbjChamp and Practiced Spellcaster aren't options.

But if you're going Battle Sorcerer, don't give up any spellcasting levels, ever. The entire point of gimping your spellcasting progression with Battle Sorc variant is to avoid needing to make the greater loss of actually giving up caster levels in classes like Fighter and Eldritch Knight. There's no reason to ever do both. If you're married to some part of an Eldritch Knight build, just go normal sorcerer (or Wizard, which is frankly just stronger).

The classic core gish is Fighter 2/Wizard 6/Eldritch Knight 10/Archmage 2, which goes into epic levels with 4 attacks and access to Epic Spellcasting. What I don't like about that build is that it has a hard time in the level 4-9 range, when it's just not quite good enough in melee to reliably stand in the front lines, and the lost caster levels feel really bad when your fragility shoehorns you into playing the wizard role.

[Eldariel]

Thank you, Eldariel. That was really informative. Sadly, I am not a great character builder, so I have to rely on others to give insight like this, so I don't end up with a character who is then simply useless. The setting revolves around a major city, so I'll probably use the variant Urban Ranger. Then likely Domain Wizard, though... will I be abusing the transformations with this build? Or should I stick with my natural form and buff myself? Deciding between Transmutation or Anti-magic.

You should be using transformations. This way you can focus more on boosting your mental stats by putting very high casting stat to start with and putting your level-up there (indeed, it's possible to be e.g. Gray Elf (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/elf.htm#grayElf) or Fire Elf (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/elementalRacialVariants.htm#fireElves) and get 20 Intelligence on level 1 if it's point buy; this is useful since it means an extra level 1 spell and great save DCs). They're basically the best thing SRD-only arcane gishes get. If level adjustment buyoff is on the table, you could consider Tiefling (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/planetouched.htm#tiefling) for the Outsider type and all the Alter Self/Polymorph forms that opens up (as well as the natural martial weapon proficiencies outsiders enjoy). Without buyoff though, the level adjustment kills that option - losing a level is basically never worth it. Even as a humanoid though, Alter Self gives you Trogdolyte (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/troglodyte.htm) for 6 Natural Armor, Multiattack bonus feat, skill bonuses and Natural Attacks or Lizardfolk (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/lizardfolk.htm) for a similar set of bonuses. Then you have lots of different skill bonuses among the various humanoids which you can use as desired.

Then on level 4 spells is the mentioned Polymorph which allows taking very powerful forms that only get better on a Gish chassis (since you have some BAB too); these include i.a. Hydra (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/hydra.htm) and its many natural attacks and Combat Reflexes, Remorhaz (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/hydra.htm) and its Swallow Whole/Burrow and vast strength, Cloaker (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/cloaker.htm) and its many non-standard attacks (note, Charisma-based saves so a good excuse to put some points into Charisma if you want to anyways) and so on; remember to keep your monster-related Knowledge-checks capped out and you have a fearsome arsenal at your disposal. If you still pick decent physical stats, you can certainly fight in your base form too but it's hard to afford high enough stats for that in normal point buy. You can use buffs either way. But if you start from level 1, decent physical stats are nigh' necessary to make it past the first 8 levels (and to pick some good feats; you should have at least 13 Str to not have to argue about picking Power Attack).

Good base physicals have the advantage of making you more fearsome in an antimagic field (a powerful defense but shutting down your own magic really sucks - Archmage can get Mastery of Shaping to create a hole for yourself to use your magic items but that removes the protection vs. most magic as well) as well as inside dead magic zones and such. Note that once you get Polymorph Any Object, two castings of it can make basically any form achievable permanent. This allows you to pick a superior base form (though you could do it without active magic effects through Magic Jar chain (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?200516-3-x-I-have-brought-you-Devastation) a bit earlier). And once you get Shapechange, that spell alone has the power of an entire 20 level character. All supernatural and extraordinary abilities in the game at your beck and call, one free shift per turn, all incorporeal/swarm/etc. forms available, insane physical stats, that spell is just nuts.


If you want your physical half to do something more impressive, there are a couple of feat chains to look into. First is the Spirited Charge (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#spiritedCharge)-chain, which allows for some truly impressive damage on a single mounted charge attack, particularly combined with Power Attack (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#powerAttack) and Quickened (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#quickenSpell) True Strike (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/trueStrike.htm). It's pretty easy for you to get a good mount with your spells; e.g. Lesser Planar Binding (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/planarBindingLesser.htm) can get e.g. Nightmare (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/nightmare.htm) to ride with its supertasty abilities. Some of the stuff you could Animate (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateDead.htm) or make Simulacrums (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/simulacrum.htm) of will serve well too; just make sure it can fly and is rather fast and durable. Any other abilities are bonus.

The other solid feat chain is Improved Trip (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#improvedTrip) (for which you luckily have Int already), particularly with e.g. Guisarme (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#guisarme) and Combat Reflexes (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#combatReflexes); you can Polymorph into some biped forms such as Annis Hag (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/hag.htm#annis) or perhaps Girallon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/girallon.htm) to still use weapons (earlier on, you already have access to Enlarge Person (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/enlargePerson.htm) for massive reach). It's no real problem for you to use many different weapons since you can eventually use Greater Magic Weapon (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/magicWeaponGreater.htm) to enhance them all for the day. Just keep Masterwork or normal versions around. Indeed, might even keep a bow and some Flame Arrow (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/flameArrow.htm)s handy; it barely costs you anything.


EDIT: To make life easier with the shapechanging spells (they can be a pain):
Alter Self Compendium (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2811)
Polymorph Compendium (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=519)

EDIT#2: Even the Fighter/Wizard/Eldritch Knight should save the second Fighter-level until late to minimize the early game difficulty. X 1/Wizard 6 is basically just a Sorcerer far as spell access goes, which isn't perfect but it's not horrible either. Though I think Ranger is about 6 kinds of superior to Fighter in Core.

[Troacctid]

Well, another thing you could do is Generic Spellcaster/Arcane Trickster and be a sneak attack gish. Your BAB is a little lower, but you have a lot more damage, more spells known, more feats, and a better spell list than a battle sorcerer (including premier buff spells like Divine Power).

I really dislike Eldritch Knight—IMO, it's just much worse than single-classing. BAB isn't that important. Arcane Trickster is the better core arcane gish. Even if generic classes are out and you have to lose caster levels, you can go Rogue 1/Thug 1 or Assassin 1 and lose the same CL as an Eldritch Knight.

[Eldariel]

I really dislike Eldritch Knight—IMO, it's just much worse than single-classing. BAB isn't that important. Arcane Trickster is the better core arcane gish. Even if generic classes are out and you have to lose caster levels, you can go Rogue 1/Thug 1 or Assassin 1 and lose the same CL as an Eldritch Knight.

I disagree: in Core, BAB is quite hard to come by. I mean, yeah, it's worse than single-classing but we're talking about Core, everything except for full casting PRCs is. If you want to do the Gish-thing though, it's not horrible. It's only 1 caster level lost after all. You can't just persist Divine Power and be done with it on an arcane Gish. No BAB means your Power Attack gets pretty worthless and cuts out a number of iterative attacks; both significant blows to your physical prowess. I dislike Sneak Attack in Core too as there are few if any ways to overcome the immunities and the setup vs. many types of vulnerable opponents is very hard without Darkstalker as well. Thus it'll just amount to nothing a significant amount of the time. Thus I'd recommend higher BAB Power Attack/feat/buff based damage paths - immunities to such are quite rare in Core.

[Troacctid]

It's two lost caster levels, since there's no way to get the martial proficiency without a dip or a level adjustment.

Arcane gishes in core are best off polymorphing, which makes BAB basically just an attack boost, since you're probably using natural weapons that don't use iteratives and don't get the good Power Attack ratio. Either that or Chill Touch, which gives you a zillion attacks no matter what your BAB is.

Plus, generic spellcasters actually do get Divine Power, although it is admittedly a lot worse when it's not persisted.

[Eldariel]

It's two lost caster levels, since there's no way to get the martial proficiency without a dip or a level adjustment.

Arcane gishes in core are best off polymorphing, which makes BAB basically just an attack boost, since you're probably using natural weapons that don't use iteratives and don't get the good Power Attack ratio. Either that or Chill Touch, which gives you a zillion attacks no matter what your BAB is.

Sure, but you can Polymorph into a humanoid form and wield weapons which is often not a terrible idea. Reach, weapon abilities (particularly trip), lance tripling, etc. - manufactured weapons have a lot of good traits. Of course, the beauty of Polymorph is that you can pick when to use which form thus allowing you to adjust for the situation but a higher BAB caster's arsenal features some options the low BAB one doesn't. Of course, strictly speaking full casting is the strongest but Eldritch Knight can certainly hold its own, especially compared to other martial types. Losing 2 caster levels suck but if one wishes to go for this archetype, that's the price.


Plus, generic spellcasters actually do get Divine Power, although it is admittedly a lot worse when it's not persisted.

Well, Generic Spellcaster is part of an alternative system that isn't really made to be used with the standard game so I wouldn't count it.

[Troacctid]

Losing 2 caster levels suck but if one wishes to go for this archetype, that's the price.
Except it's not actually the price, because you can just not take the class and be better at the same archetype. This isn't Mystic Theurge, where you're either taking the prestige class or you're not doing the thing at all. Why do you have to be an Eldritch Knight? What are you getting from it that you're not getting from the base class? Better numbers? Your numbers are actually probably worse, because you lost two caster levels that would have improved your numbers. More attacks? No, you're actually making fewer attacks, as per the aforementioned lost caster levels giving you fewer Chill Touches or fewer heads in hydra form. Qualitative improvements, new abilities? No, the class offers no new abilities at all. So where's the upside?

[Eldariel]

Except it's not actually the price, because you can just not take the class and be better at the same archetype. This isn't Mystic Theurge, where you're either taking the prestige class or you're not doing the thing at all. Why do you have to be an Eldritch Knight? What are you getting from it that you're not getting from the base class? Better numbers? Your numbers are actually probably worse, because you lost two caster levels that would have improved your numbers. More attacks? No, you're actually making fewer attacks, as per the aforementioned lost caster levels giving you fewer Chill Touches or fewer heads in hydra form. Qualitative improvements, new abilities? No, the class offers no new abilities at all. So where's the upside?

Well, martial weapon proficiencies are nice - having to waste feats or taking the -4 to use e.g. Lance, Guisarme or even just simple Falchion is kinda silly and their Simple counterparts just sorta suck. Of course, if you usurp a better host body, you'll perform far better in dead magic, antimagic and such too, to the point that you can beat up many CR-appropriate challenges without using spells. And you have access to somewhat better Power Attack and in general, fight with manufactured weapons (enhanced by Polymorph). In short, some options.

Yeah, you need to reach character level 14 to get the full Hydra. You'll always be behind in caster level (which seriously sucks; why isn't Practiced Spellcaster SRD again?) which certainly means a pure caster has many advantages even in terms of martial prowess and optimization-wise it's always the superior pick. But if one wants to play Eldritch Knight, that's still helluva lot better than a non-caster.


Chill Touch though? I thought it only allowed for touch attacks which pretty much do no damage. If you wanted to deliver them as a part of unarmed/natural attack instead of no-damage touches, I don't see anything in the text that would allow any extra attacks so you'd have to weave them into your full attack. Unless I'm missing something, it doesn't look very useful for actually making attacks if your goal is to kill somebody.

[Troacctid]

Chill Touch though? I thought it only allowed for touch attacks which pretty much do no damage. If you wanted to deliver them as a part of unarmed/natural attack instead of no-damage touches, I don't see anything in the text that would allow any extra attacks so you'd have to weave them into your full attack. Unless I'm missing something, it doesn't look very useful for actually making attacks if your goal is to kill somebody.

If a spell allows you to make multiple attacks and has a casting time of 1 standard action, all those attacks occur during that standard action, so Chill Touch lets you make one attack/level (uncapped) in a single round. Add the Strength damage and the combo with Improved Unarmed Strike, and it's a very efficient damage-dealing spell.

[Cine]

Two routes here:

Battle Sorcerer 20. This is acceptable. I wouldn't try to add Eldritch Knight to it, it stands well enough on its own, and getting Martial Weapon Proficiency is going to be a pain in the ass anyway.

Fighter 2/Wizard 6/Eldritch Knight 10/Archmage 2. Great at level 1-2 (being a fighter is actually kind of cool at low levels), drops off at level 5-8, but passable from there.

[Inevitability]

Ask your DM if you can use the test-based prerequisites (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/campaigns/testBasedPrerequisites.htm#eldritchKnight) for the Eldritch Knight class. It's technically SRD and removes the unpleasant martial weapon prerequisites. Instead, you have to win a few martial tests and a couple of spellcasting tests, which should be possible with proper preparation.

[Âmesang]

Does this mean my battle sorcerer tables will be of use? :smalltongue: I figured not every player would want to bother calculating how many spells known/per day he'll have at each level.

https://www.schadenfreudestudios.com/forum/thread.php?thread=24

[Flickerdart]

Strongly consider taking Improved Familiar - your buddy will benefit from your improved BAB and HP, as well as all the buffs you're stacking on yourself. You can even buy armour and weapons for them! All Outsiders are proficient with all martial weapons (which is a great way to get into Eldritch Knight, by the way, just go Aasimar + level-adjustment buyoff) and as long as your armour is ACP 0, nonproficiency doesn't matter.