Swiftblade build advice?

[Clopin Silk]

I was just wondering how you put together a good build for a swiftblade in 3.5. What should my base class be? What about race? Any feats I should be getting? And how about weapons? I love the whole flavour to the Swiftblade, and I just wanted to know how to set one up right.

[ExLibrisMortis]

A basic swiftblade is like this:

Elf martial elven wizard 6/swiftblade 10
Feats: Power Attack1, Dodgewiz 1, [feat]3, Mobilitywiz 5, Extend Spell6, Arcane Strike9, Minor Shapeshift12, [feat]15

Pick either Sun or Fire elf (+2 intelligence and no penalty to strength). Your elvenness provides the martial weapon proficiency prerequisite for Swiftblade. For your wizard levels, either pick elf generalist domain wizard, or focused specialist in conjuration or transmutation. The former gives you more versatility, the latter gives you slightly more slots to burn on Arcane Strike.

Generally, you'll want to add persistomancy. There are two main ways to do this: adding Incantatrix (wizard 5/incantatrix 3/swiftblade 10), and adding Spelldancer (wizard 6/swiftblade 3/spelldancer 1/swiftblade +7). Spelldancer requires two crap feats; Incantatrix requires one (which can be bought, for 3000 gp), and gives a bonus feat in return. Spelldancer requires some fairly useless cross-class Perform ranks; Incantatrix requires you to ban a school of magic (annoying for focused specialists). Incantatrix persistomancy is somewhat more convenient (faster to use, no requirements); Spelldancer persistomancy can be effectively unlimited, if you have restorative magic at hand. In the end, it's a bit of a toss-up, pick what suits your character.

When starting at low levels, a dip in an initiator class is really nice, especially if you won't need every iota of casting at higher levels. Crusader 1/wizard 5/swiftblade 10 is much more survivable at levels 1-3. Initiator classes all get Tumble, as well (crusader trades in Ride), which is really useful, and a prerequisite for Spelldancer. If you do dip, you don't need to be an elf to get martial proficiency - just take any class you like.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Generally people refrain from taking the 10th level of Swiftblade.
It costs you another level of spell progression and stops you getting 9th level spells before epic, but that's mostly a theoretical exercise unless your game actually goes that far.
Still, it delays your casting by another level. You'll have to decide if pseudo-timestop is worth that when you get that far.

Try to get some way to increase your damage. Arcane Strike will serve, but it'll eat up your spell slots.
High strength & Power Attack also works, but you'll run into MAD trying to keep up both Str and Int.
You'll generally want a two-handed weapon (or a 1-handed weapon wielded with both hands) because you can't afford the feats to TWF and need a hand free to cast.


Generally, you'll want to add persistomancy. There are two main ways to do this: adding Incantatrix (wizard 5/incantatrix 3/swiftblade 10), and adding Spelldancer (wizard 6/swiftblade 3/spelldancer 1/swiftblade +7). Spelldancer requires two crap feats; Incantatrix requires one (which can be bought, for 3000 gp), and gives a bonus feat in return. Spelldancer requires some fairly useless cross-class Perform ranks; Incantatrix requires you to ban a school of magic (annoying for focused specialists). Incantatrix persistomancy is somewhat more convenient (faster to use, no requirements); Spelldancer persistomancy can be effectively unlimited, if you have restorative magic at hand. In the end, it's a bit of a toss-up, pick what suits your character.
While Incantatrix is generally the better choice, if only because it's easier to qualify for, keep in mind that going that way will cost you BAB. It'll also either delay your actually being a gish or come so late as to make little difference in a campaign that starts at low levels.

Spelldancer can be squeezed in instead of the 6th wizard level if your group uses fractional BAB calculation - you need Dodge and Mobility anyway, Combat Casting is a prerequisite for Abjurant Champion which is a popular finish for Swiftblade builds so that only leaves Endurance. You have the feats to qualify if you go with a Martial Wizard.
If your DM allows it you can later retrain it and get the feat from Unfailing Endurance (DotF) either cast by a friendly cleric or with Limited Wish - it lasts 1 day/level, so extended you won't have to renew it often.
The skill ranks are doable cross-class with your high int, and they're definitely worth it.

Remember though that a Swiftblade will still do fine without persistomancy. It's certainly useful, but being able to cast Haste quickened automatically and all the buffs the class stacks on it already covers a lot of ground for you.
Mostly people just want persistent Wraithstrike to make full use of Power Attack, but you can get by with a wand (in a wand chamber) - they're not that expensive and take only a swift action to activate.

Also take a look at your group first. If you already have a more traditional caster taking Incantatrix levels he can use Cooperative Metamagic to help persist your buffs.
He can't use it on himself anyway so it's not like he's giving something up to help you.

Try to keep in mind the general powerlevel at your table too. Being an order of magnitude stronger than everyone else is no fun for the other players or the DM.


When starting at low levels, a dip in an initiator class is really nice, especially if you won't need every iota of casting at higher levels. Crusader 1/wizard 5/swiftblade 10 is much more survivable at levels 1-3. Initiator classes all get Tumble, as well (crusader trades in Ride), which is really useful, and a prerequisite for Spelldancer. If you do dip, you don't need to be an elf to get martial proficiency - just take any class you like.
I wouldn't do that. You're already losing casting progression from taking Swiftblade.
Pure wizards do just fine at low levels, you'll just have to wait a bit to start the gish playstyle. And taking a martial adept class at level 1 really doesn't add that much in the long run.
You'll be stuck with a few 1st level maneuvers your whole career. If you want a ToB gish play a Jade Phoenix Mage instead.

[darksolitaire]

Pick either Sun or Fire elf (+2 intelligence and no penalty to strength). Your elvenness provides the martial weapon proficiency prerequisite for Swiftblade. For your wizard levels, either pick elf generalist domain wizard, or focused specialist in conjuration or transmutation. The former gives you more versatility, the latter gives you slightly more slots to burn on Arcane Strike.


Remember that unless you houserule it otherwise, entry requirements for Swiftblade require you to use all of your 3rd level spell slots to cast haste, which is practically impossible for conjuration specialist.

[Ywvbevlin]

Remember that unless you houserule it otherwise, entry requirements for Swiftblade require you to use all of your 3rd level spell slots to cast haste, which is practically impossible for conjuration specialist.

why? he can cant he

[sleepyphoenixx]

why? he can cant he

You can't use your specialist slots for Haste because it's not a conjuration spell.

[remetagross]

Here is the Swiftblade Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=333.0).

Moreover, I am currently playing a build that aims to take all 10 levels of Swiftblade while losing the minimal amount of BAB and still being able to nab the 6th level limited Time Stop. The build is:
Silverbrow Human (for Disguise as a class skill) Wild Shape Mystic Ranger 7 (for the proficiencies, the BAB and the spellcasting ability)/Chameleon 3 (for the arcane casting class)/Swiftblade 10. You end up with 19 BAB, 6th level spells arcane casting, 3rd level spells ranger casting, and Wild Shape (small and medium animals).

[ExLibrisMortis]

I wouldn't do that. You're already losing casting progression from taking Swiftblade.
Pure wizards do just fine at low levels, you'll just have to wait a bit to start the gish playstyle. And taking a martial adept class at level 1 really doesn't add that much in the long run.
You'll be stuck with a few 1st level maneuvers your whole career. If you want a ToB gish play a Jade Phoenix Mage instead.
While it's true that a one-level dip won't be too noticable at level 15, builds exist at other levels, too. At first level, a crusader or warblade is much more survivable than a wizard. In the long run, the warblade has some nice synergy with Stormguard Warrior, if you want to build towards that, or you can use a feat/item to pick up a sweet higher-level maneuver (you can meet a lot of maneuver prereqs with one level). It's not a super-high-OP choice (as I noted), but it's definitely a solid choice, and it'll give you all-day power in campaigns that need it.

(oh, and note that Spelldancer qualification at level 6 requires that you have Perform in-class, which most wizards do not - 6 ranks is available at level 9 cross-class)


Remember that unless you houserule it otherwise, entry requirements for Swiftblade require you to use all of your 3rd level spell slots to cast haste, which is practically impossible for conjuration specialist.
Yes, it's a bit annoying. It means you can't use your specialist slots at the level right before you enter Swiftblade, but that's probably managable enough.


Moreover, I am currently playing a build that aims to take all 10 levels of Swiftblade while losing the minimal amount of BAB and still being able to nab the 6th level limited Time Stop. The build is:
Silverbrow Human (for Disguise as a class skill) Wild Shape Mystic Ranger 7 (for the proficiencies, the BAB and the spellcasting ability)/Chameleon 3 (for the arcane casting class)/Swiftblade 10. You end up with 19 BAB, 6th level spells arcane casting, 3rd level spells ranger casting, and Wild Shape (small and medium animals).
Chameleon can't normally qualify for anything that requires or advances arcane casting.

[Troacctid]

Generally people refrain from taking the 10th level of Swiftblade.
It costs you another level of spell progression and stops you getting 9th level spells before epic, but that's mostly a theoretical exercise unless your game actually goes that far.
I mean, time stop is a 9th level spell.

[sleepyphoenixx]

I mean, time stop is a 9th level spell.

Yeah, and you'll get it at level 16 instead of 20 in exchange for never casting 9th level spells at all pre-epic.
Sure, Time Stop is useful. But so is Shapechange, Foresight or Mindrape.
It also comes at level 16 instead of 7th level spells, which are already 3 levels late and will be another level later. With 8th level only coming at 19. That's also a consideration.

What's worth more? Time Stop now instead of 7th level spells and 8th level spells delayed even further?
Is your game even likely to last that long?
That's something you have to decide for yourself on a case-by-case basis.

[remetagross]

Chameleon can't normally qualify for anything that requires or advances arcane casting.

Ah, crap. Why exactly?

[ExLibrisMortis]

Ah, crap. Why exactly?
Because it says so in the ability, I'm afraid.

Game-design wise, this is probably an attempt to avoid an egregious example of "doesn't qualify for the PrC part of the time, wat do?".

[remetagross]

Ah, well. Hard to argue against that. This detail does not appear on the website on which I consulted the class, hence my mistake.