[3.5] Help With Gish Concept

[Thurbane]

Hey all,

Just looking for some ideas on a build I'm considering at some undefined point in the future:

A Sorcerer based gish, who specializes in "weapon based" spells. I know this is not going to be an optimal build, but it's more for thematic/fun reasons than anything.

The following is not negotiable:

Must be Sorcerer based (i.e. not Wizard or any other class).
Must hit BAB +16 by ECL 20 (wihtout relying on spells or items).
Must be able to cast at least 8th level spells by ECL 20.
No psionics, incarnum or other subsystems aside from ToB.
No Pathfinder, Dragon Magazine (apart from compendium), 3rd party or homebrew. I'll stress NO PATHFINDER again just to be sure. :smallwink:

Other than that I'm fairly open to suggestions.

By "weapon based" spells, I'm talking about things like Keen Edge, Steeldance, Cloud of Knives etc. Happy to have some self-buffs in there, and utility spells. Probably some Abjuration to get into Abjurant Champion.

If I end up with spare feats, would like to pick up some Martial Study and Martial Stance.

Looking for class, feat and spell suggestions, primarily.

Cheers - T

[Grod_The_Giant]

Your basic Sorcadin build oughta do. Sorcerer 4/Paladin 2/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Sacred Exorcist 8? Gives you 18th level casting and +16 BAB.

[Nifft]

Arcane Variant Swordsage 15 / Abjurant Champion 5 -- not a Sorcerer, but knows very few spells, and those spells can be cast spontaneously. Ought to be a good fit to concept if it's allowed.

Crusader 2 / Sorcerer 4 / Jade Phoenix Mage 10 / Abjurant Champion 4 -- or take Unarmed Swordsage + Ascetic Mage so you get Cha to AC instead of Wis. Either way, you lose 4 levels of spellcasting, so that's 8th level spells at ECL 20, and you have BAB +18 (or +17 if you go Swordsage).

That's all I got.

[zlefin]

I'm curious; what do you need the +16 BAB for? the 4th iterative? or is there some feat you want that needs that much bab?


when you say sorceror based; does that mena majority of levels should be sorceror (including prc levels)?

[NecroDancer]

Have you checked out the Swift Blade prestige class? It's free in WotC's archives.

[Anthrowhale]

The logic of the standard sorcadin is pretty strong through abjurant champion, but there are some alternatives to Sacred Exorcist. For example, Halfling Whistler (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20061121a) provides a 6+int skills include stealth & social.

[Thurbane]

I'm curious; what do you need the +16 BAB for? the 4th iterative? or is there some feat you want that needs that much bab?

For iteratives, and as stated, I do not want to rely on spells or items to get that iterative.


when you say sorceror based; does that mena majority of levels should be sorceror (including prc levels)?

No, what I'm saying is that I want the casting to be based on Sorcerer casting. I don't really care if it's Sorcerer 1/other classes 19. The reason for that stipulation would be that someone would inevitably suggest "go Wizard instead", which I'm not interested in for this build. I'm really a fan of Sorcerer: no need to manage a spell book or a large list of spells.


Have you checked out the Swift Blade prestige class? It's free in WotC's archives.

Yeah, Swiftblade is cool, but quite feat intensive. I will consider it, though.


The logic of the standard sorcadin is pretty strong through abjurant champion, but there are some alternatives to Sacred Exorcist. For example, Halfling Whistler (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20061121a) provides a 6+int skills include stealth & social.

Cool - yeah, I gotta say, Sacred Exorcist is great mechanically, but I'm not digging the fluff in relation to this character. Or the need to blow a spell known on a spell I'll probably never use again.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Illumian (Naenhoon), Fighter (Dungeoncrasher) 2 or Paladin 2/ Sorcerer 4/ Spellsword 1/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Sacred Exorcist 8.

Dungeoncrasher Fighter is for Melf's Unicorn Arrow (PH2), the spell doesn't indicate which direction the bull rush effect comes from so you can make it bull rush them straight down into the ground. This is entirely optional, but I think it adds a nice high-damage gimmick that fits the theme extremely well.

Your primary method of attacking should be a (Naenhoon) Persistent Thunderlance (SC) which you can two-handed Power Attack with, using (Persistent) Wraithstrike to ensure you hit. That weapon uses Int or Cha instead of Str, so you won't need Polymorph or Str-buffing effects so much in the later levels.

Prior to gaining Persistent Thunderlance, consider using Fist of Stone or similar. A (Lesser Rod of) Extended Fist of Stone is almost guaranteed to last an entire encounter, and you can use a +1 mithral buckler with that. That adds 1.5x Str to damage if you don't make attacks with any other weapons in the same round, including on AoOs, and you can even make it Persistent and use Greater Mighty Wallop with it if you choose to forego the Thunderlance for a Str-based build.

Edit:

Cool - yeah, I gotta say, Sacred Exorcist is great mechanically, but I'm not digging the fluff in relation to this character. Or the need to blow a spell known on a spell I'll probably never use again.

You only need to know Dismissal until you hit Sacred Exorcist 4, then its own Dispel Evil spell-like ability meets that prerequisite for you.

[zlefin]

For iteratives, and as stated, I do not want to rely on spells or items to get that iterative.

No, what I'm saying is that I want the casting to be based on Sorcerer casting. I don't really care if it's Sorcerer 1/other classes 19. The reason for that stipulation would be that someone would inevitably suggest "go Wizard instead", which I'm not interested in for this build. I'm really a fan of Sorcerer: no need to manage a spell book or a large list of spells.


ah, ok.
my only remaining comment would be to consider using battle sorceror variant as it fits the theme better.

[Nifft]

Very simple build: Ranger 1 / Sorcerer 5 / Mindbender 1 / Knight Phantom 10 / Abjurant Champion 3

Knight Phantom from here: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050706a&page=4

You may be able to get Martial Weapon proficiency from other sources (e.g. being an Outsider), in which case you can skip the Ranger level and find another way to get Ride 4 (cross-class payment works but sucks).

[Thurbane]

Crusader 2 / Sorcerer 4 / Jade Phoenix Mage 10 / Abjurant Champion 4 -- or take Unarmed Swordsage + Ascetic Mage so you get Cha to AC instead of Wis. Either way, you lose 4 levels of spellcasting, so that's 8th level spells at ECL 20, and you have BAB +18 (or +17 if you go Swordsage).

That's all I got.

Very simple build: Ranger 1 / Sorcerer 5 / Mindbender 1 / Knight Phantom 10 / Abjurant Champion 3

Knight Phantom from here: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050706a&page=4

You may be able to get Martial Weapon proficiency from other sources (e.g. being an Outsider), in which case you can skip the Ranger level and find another way to get Ride 4 (cross-class payment works but sucks).
Those both look promising, thanks. :smallsmile:


ah, ok.
my only remaining comment would be to consider using battle sorceror variant as it fits the theme better.
BS would be a good fit, I'm just not sure the spells known lost would be worth the benefits.

...

I'm also hoping to squeeze a Bloodline feat (maybe Earth) in there for more spells known. Enlarge Person, Keen Edge and Iron Body are all spells good for this character.

[Nifft]

You could go Stalwart Battle Sorcerer 15 / Abjurant Champion 5 -- but you'd need some pretty sick ACFs to compensate for taking 15 levels of Sorcerer.

[Thurbane]

Crusader 1/Sorcerer 6/Eldritch Knight 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight +7 would work too.

EK isn't great, but I could use the bonus feat to grab Martial Study...

[Eldariel]

There's always Kobold if you want to go the Greater Draconic Rite route. That gives you one extra level of casting. If you'd prefer, you can also replace BAB advancing classes with Incantatrix 3 or Spelldancer 1 to persist your buffs, and take Arcane Disciple: War or such for Divine Power.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Crusader 1/Sorcerer 6/Eldritch Knight 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight +7 would work too.

EK isn't great, but I could use the bonus feat to grab Martial Study...

Eldritch Knight doesn't advance your spells known, only spells/day and caster level. Knight Phantom (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050706a&page=4) could work, though.

[EndocrineBandit]

Would arcane disciple be useful for the build? Maybe war domain to have combat buffs and opens up holy warrior.

[Thurbane]

There's always Kobold if you want to go the Greater Draconic Rite route. That gives you one extra level of casting. If you'd prefer, you can also replace BAB advancing classes with Incantatrix 3 or Spelldancer 1 to persist your buffs, and take Arcane Disciple: War or such for Divine Power.


Would arcane disciple be useful for the build? Maybe war domain to have combat buffs and opens up holy warrior.

It might be an option, but needs Wis, which I was hoping to be a dump stat.


Eldritch Knight doesn't advance your spells known, only spells/day and caster level. Knight Phantom (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050706a&page=4) could work, though.

Never noticed that before. I'm fairly confident my table would rule that it increases spells known as well.

...

Looking at spells I might want to pick up to fit this theme (I'll be culling a lot of the useless ones and double-ups):

0
Silvered Weapon

1
Backbiter
Blade of Blood
Blades of Fire
Magic Weapon
Master's Touch
Mighty Wallop
Persistent Blade
Weapon Shift

2
Bladesong
Bladeweave
Burning Sword
Cloud of Knives
Decastave
Enlarge Weapon
Flame Dagger
Frost Weapon
Hurl
Infernal Wound
Returning Weapon
Scimitar of Sand
Sonic Weapon
Stretch Weapon
Whirling Blade

3
Dolorous Blow
Energy Surge
Greater Magic Weapon
Greater Mighty Wallop
Keen Edge
Legion of Sentinels
Spectral Weapon
Steeldance
Vile Lance
Weapon Of Energy
Weapon of Impact

4
Bladebane

5
Dancing Blade
Sakkratar's Triple Strike
Sword of Deception
Touch of Adamantine
Toxic Weapon
Vanishing Weapon

7
Arrow of Bone
Brilliant Aura
Mage's Sword
Sword of Darkness

9
Black Blade of Disaster

[Eldariel]

It might be an option, but needs Wis, which I was hoping to be a dump stat.

You can get some Wis bonus from age categories as a Dragonwrought Kobold which is free. Desert Kobolds have -2 Wis, while the ages give +3 and Dragons get no age penalties so this comes out at +1. You need 13 base Wis but given you're also looking at +3 Cha and Int, you should be reasonably fine. Wis-boosting items help there too, of course, and worst case scenario, you can also use a class like 2 levels of Wyrm Wizard to take it without the Wisdom prerequisite.


Looking at spells I might want to pick up to fit this theme (I'll be culling a lot of the useless ones and double-ups):

1
Backbiter
Blade of Blood
Blades of Fire
Magic Weapon
Master's Touch
Mighty Wallop
Persistent Blade
Weapon Shift

2
Bladesong
Bladeweave
Burning Sword
Decastave
Enlarge Weapon
Flame Dagger
Frost Weapon
Hurl
Infernal Wound
Returning Weapon
Scimitar of Sand
Sonic Weapon
Stretch Weapon
Whirling Blade

3
Dolorous Blow
Energy Surge
Greater Magic Weapon
Greater Mighty Wallop
Keen Edge
Legion of Sentinels
Spectral Weapon
Steeldance
Vile Lance
Weapon Of Energy
Weapon of Impact

4
Bladebane

5
Sakkratar's Triple Strike
Sword of Deception
Touch of Adamantine
Toxic Weapon
Vanishing Weapon

7
Arrow of Bone
Brilliant Aura
Mage's Sword
Sword of Darkness

9
Black Blade of Disaster

A couple of spells to note: Telekinesis is great on gishes since it uses BAB and you can always carry some weapons in your background for very efficient (quickened) barrages. Quickened True Strike plus Power Attack is a classic, particularly on a single attack such as (mounted or otherwise) charge with multipliers. Wraithstrike is of course amazing. Minor Creation for poison is always strong.

[Thurbane]

You can get some Wis bonus from age categories as a Dragonwrought Kobold which is free. Desert Kobolds have -2 Wis, while the ages give +3 and Dragons get no age penalties so this comes out at +1. You need 13 base Wis but given you're also looking at +3 Cha and Int, you should be reasonably fine. Wis-boosting items help there too, of course, and worst case scenario, you can also use a class like 2 levels of Wyrm Wizard to take it without the Wisdom prerequisite.

I'd like to avoid Kobold if possible (for aesthetic/RP reasons), but thanks for the suggestions.


A couple of spells to note: Telekinesis is great on gishes since it uses BAB and you can always carry some weapons in your background for very efficient (quickened) barrages. Quickened True Strike plus Power Attack is a classic, particularly on a single attack such as (mounted or otherwise) charge with multipliers. Wraithstrike is of course amazing. Minor Creation for poison is always strong.

That's great: definitely looking for additonal spells to slot into the build that aren't directly "weapon based". :smallsmile:

I'm probably going to look into a custim Runestaff and some Knowstones as well (Knowstones are one of our few exceptions to Dragon material).

1
Enlarge Person
Ghostly Tail
Nightshield
Shield

2
Alter Self
Wings of Cover
Wraithstrike

3
Fly
Haste
Magic Circle Against Evil
Ray Deflection

4
Greater Resistance
Lesser Globe of Invulnerability
Minor Creation
Orb of Force
Polymorph
Wings of Flurry

5
Indomitability
Telekinesis

6
Greater Dispel Magic
Starmantle

8
Min Blank

9
Maw of Chaos

[Nifft]

Can you fit in a level of Sand Shaper?

[Thurbane]

Can you fit in a level of Sand Shaper?

If I can, would be great. I'd probably need to sacrifice BAB +16 and/or 9th level spells, though.

I could go Sorcerer 4/Ruathar 3/Sand Shaper 2/Jade Phoenix Mage 5/Abjurant Champion 5/Dragonslayer 1, but it wouldn't be very gishy until about ECL 10, and would be very feat intensive (Heighten Spell, Versatile Spellcaster, Martial Study x2, Martial Stance, Combat Casting, Dodge, Iron will).

[Mr Adventurer]

Hmm. If you can fit in enough levels of Bloodstorm Blade, would you be able to throw those weaponliks spells?!

[Gruftzwerg]

Hmm. If you can fit in enough levels of Bloodstorm Blade, would you be able to throw those weaponliks spells?!

nope, that the part where the spell ain't weapon-like anymore^^.

BSBs abilities target his "weapon". While the spell behaves weapon-like, it is still a spell an not a weapon. Thus it can't be targeted as weapon (for the BSB ability). Unless the spell produces a real weapon, it won't work.

edit: typo can/can't ..^^

[Nifft]

If I can, would be great. I'd probably need to sacrifice BAB +16 and/or 9th level spells, though.

I could go Sorcerer 4/Ruathar 3/Sand Shaper 2/Jade Phoenix Mage 5/Abjurant Champion 5/Dragonslayer 1, but it wouldn't be very gishy until about ECL 10, and would be very feat intensive (Heighten Spell, Versatile Spellcaster, Martial Study x2, Martial Stance, Combat Casting, Dodge, Iron will).

Hmm, that's pretty convoluted. Much simpler would be:

Stalwart Battle Sorcerer 8 / Dragonslayer 1 / Spellsword 1 / Eldritch Knight 10

That only costs you 2 feats. You'd have BAB 18 and Sorc 19 casting.


But you'd lose a lot of spells known, so fitting in Sand Shaper would help a lot. How about...

Stalwart Battle Sorcerer 8 / Sand Shaper 2 / Dragonslayer 1 / Spellsword 1 / Abjurant Champion 5 / ___ 3 (Ruathar? Supernatural Trickster?)

You lose 4 BAB total (SBSorc 8 is BAB -2, SS is BAB -1, Ruathar 3 would be BAB -1)

If you're using fractional BAB, then you could do Sand Shaper 1 / Mindbender 1 instead. Heck, you could go SBSorc 5 / Ruathar 3 instead of SBSorc 8.

It's probably optimal to have the Sand Shaper levels as soon as possible, and then go back to SBSorc, or Ruathar.

You'll also want a Bloodline feat to restore the spells known that you traded for BAB.


At what level are you starting play? Are you using the fractional BAB rule?

[WhamBamSam]

I've been toying with the idea of a Whirling Blade Gish with one level of Marshal, the Cleave line, and Combat Brute for a while. Your Marshal Aura is Art of War to add Cha to Sunder attempts, and the trick is that both Cleave and Combat Brute's Sundering Cleave use the same attack mod as the attack that triggered them, meaning that if you sunder a weapon, your Sundering Cleave keeps your Cha bonus from Art of War, and if you then kill the enemy with the Sundering Cleave, you can continue to keep the bonus on your Cleave attack (if you choose to make it a sunder attempt, you even get Cha to the roll again from Art of War). Whirling Blade makes it easier to set up Cleave attacks as you can use it to kill far away mooks (even allied ones if you have something like Destructive Retribution undead) with melee attacks and so be able to Cleave into an adjacent target even if there aren't other enemies within reach. You even get to keep your initial Cha to attack from Whirling Blade on your various Cleave attacks.

My build uses Primordial Half-Giant with Knockback and sinks two caster levels into Dungeon Crasher Fighter and maybe a few more into other stylish but suboptimal melee things, but the core of the build works with a more castery setup and without any Psionic components (not that the Psionics are being used for anything, but I'm guessing that just stripping down to a non-Psionic Half-Giant violates the no homebrew stipulation).

[Anthrowhale]

The battle sorcerer approach is interesting but you might consider:

1) Witch Hunter 1 (Cha to saves, Martial&Armor proficiencies, -1 spell level, -1 feat) instead of Dragonslayer 1 (Immune fear, Martial&Armor proficiencies, -2 feats). +10 to all saves may be worth delaying spell access in some builds.
2) Abjurant Champion to delay the dead level in Eldritch Knight (+AC benefits). A second level of Witch Hunter also delays the inevitable.
3) Mother Cyst instead of or in addition to Sand Shaper. Remember that Sorcerers can trade any spell known that is 2 levels lower than the their top spell known for any other spell... and Mother Cyst/Sand Shaper add to spells known.
4) Starting prestige classes at Battle Sorcerer 7 and taking battle sorcerer 8 later.

[Thurbane]

Witch Hunter looks good, but may be a little campaign setting specific for my needs. I'll definitely consider it though. It's a shame you only get +1 CL at level 2: the main benefit of Dragonslayer is BAB +1 and CL +1 at 1st level.

I'm probably going to avoid Stalwart/Battle Sorcerer, due to the hit to spells known...

[Nifft]

3) Mother Cyst instead of or in addition to

Mother Cyst is a great idea. It's on par with a [Bloodline] feat.

[Fouredged Sword]

I am not seeing cloud of knives on your spell list. 1 free attack each round at range is NICE. It makes for a great carrier of fell metamagics.

One thing that is VERY nice for spells that generate multiple attacks without saves such as weapon like spells is the Fell line of feats. Fell Weaken is a nice debuff to add to an attack. Fell drain is of course the best of the lot. A negative level as a rider without a save is nasty.