Help requested: 2 arcane caster builds

[eversilentone]

Hi folks,

I'm trying to design 2 NPCs who would be ongoing enemies for PCs in an upcoming campaign and I could use a little assistance. Thematically they are battle mages, with one leaning more towards using weapons and armour and the other being a blaster/controller type (spells for days).

Character 1: Duskblade 13/Other Caster xx
I'd love to find a way to really use Arcane Channelling in a nasty way - ideally with something like Enervation (sidebar: any way to make this a touch spell?) or Shivering Touch. I know that I could have 7 levels of another base class caster but I wonder if there's another way to get higher casting potential. I'd looked at Nar Demonbinder but that's conjuration focused (I think I could get in via Arcane Disciple: Summoning but that and Spell Focus: Conjuration feel wasteful). There's always the option of Sublime Chord but I've already used that in one of my other builds. Are there any other fixed list casters a Duskblade 13 could enter to really up their casting?

Character 2: Ultimate Magus, 2 spontaneous casters?
A bit more of a question really, but is there any way to make an Ultimate Magus with two spontaneous casters? Arcane Preparation can make you a (sort of) prepared caster and Magical Training can let you cast 0 level spells from a spellbook, but I can't find a way to make that into casting a level 2 spell from a spellbook. Or would Magical Training plus either Versatile Spellcaster or Precocious Apprentice satisfy that? Ideally the build would end up being Sorcerer/Warmage as I'm looking for them to have juice over a running and drawn out fight. That said it might not be possible, but I thought I'd ask

I'd appreciate any assistance that's available. Thanks in advance :)

[Cosi]

For nasty uses of Arcane Channeling, you could do with a polymorph based build. Turning into a Giant Octopus grants you a nine attack full attack routine, which means that even something as simple as shocking grasp is an average of more than a hundred points of damage.

If you houserule Arcane Channeling to work with full attacks from 3rd (which is kind of dirty pool if you're making a Duskblade villain, but is also a legitimately good decision to make for the class), you could do something like Duskblade/Ur Priest/Mystic Theurge (or Duskblade/Druid/Arcane Hierophant, which gives you access to Wild Shape for Giant Octopus fun).

For a sustained caster, have you instead considered a build that abuses Primal Scholar + unfettered heroism for unlimited uses of 5th level and lower spells? Something like Sorcerer 6/Incantatrix 4/Primal Scholar 5/Whatever 5 (I might go War Weaver).

[Zaq]

I think Sublime Chord is the "cleanest" way to get high-level spells after Duskblade 13, since it offers the full Wizard list (and then some) and doesn't start at 1st level spells. That said, I understand the feeling of "we already did that joke" only too well.

You could look at Ur-Priest. Arcane Channeling works with any touch spell you can cast, regardless of class source or power source. You'd take a few levels to really get up to speed—Duskblade 13 already gives you 4th level spells, so you're a minimum of 5 levels into Ur-Priest (ECL 18+) before you get spells that are higher than what Duskblade offered. Technically you'd actually need 6 levels of Ur-Priest to unambiguously outstrip your Duskblade spell level, since Duskblade 17 gives 5ths. You'd barely scrape 7ths at ECL 20, assuming you've got enough WIS to squeeze out a bonus slot. Technically better than Duskblade 20 (give or take needing crazy stats and also likely having significantly overall spells per day), but probably a little bit worse than Sublime Chord, if for no other reason than that SC gives more slots per day than U-P does.

The benefit, of course, would be access to Cleric spells rather than, y'know, Duskblade spells. Clerics have plenty of touch spells (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html), so you might be able to swing that into something interesting, depending on exactly what your goal is. If you don't mind losing even more BAB, you could theoretically jump into Contemplative or other classes that advance divine casting and grant domains after getting your Ur-Priest card. (If you have one specific domain in mind, there's always Divine Crusader instead of Ur-Priest, but to call DC "a good choice" is to perhaps be less of an optimizer and more of an optimist.)

Depending on your cheese tolerance, you might be able to go dumpster-diving with a Chameleon and find sufficiently low-level versions of weird touch spells, but I'm not necessarily convinced that there's enough meat on that bone to be worth the level investment.

Also, for what it's worth, Necrotic Cyst is a touch spell. It's not necessarily a winner on action economy, but I do find the idea of full channeling and giving everyone within arm's reach a Cyst to be slightly entertaining.

[Eldariel]

Aside from SC, you're stuck with Beholder Mage, Divine Crusader, Illithid Savant, Blighter or Ur-Priest. I'd go Sublime Chord if only for Irresistible Dance as a level 6 spell (hilarious for high reach forms or any way to hit everyone from range) and fully advanced caster level. Divine Crusader also fits the bill as your desires are specific enough, but Irresistible Dance! (pretty legit coupled with Familiar dropping a scroll of Disjunction).

For UM, the easiest is to just do Spontaneous Wizard via e.g. Spontaneous Divination + Versatile Spellcaster or Uncanny Forethought as your preparing side.

[eversilentone]

For nasty uses of Arcane Channeling, you could do with a polymorph based build. Turning into a Giant Octopus grants you a nine attack full attack routine, which means that even something as simple as shocking grasp is an average of more than a hundred points of damage.
It's dirtier than I'd go as a PC but for an NPC I really love the idea! I need scour the MM to see if there are any other (ideally land based) creatures with a very large number of attacks, but this is a great idea, thank you!


If you houserule Arcane Channeling to work with full attacks from 3rd (which is kind of dirty pool if you're making a Duskblade villain, but is also a legitimately good decision to make for the class), you could do something like Duskblade/Ur Priest/Mystic Theurge (or Duskblade/Druid/Arcane Hierophant, which gives you access to Wild Shape for Giant Octopus fun).

For a sustained caster, have you instead considered a build that abuses Primal Scholar + unfettered heroism for unlimited uses of 5th level and lower spells? Something like Sorcerer 6/Incantatrix 4/Primal Scholar 5/Whatever 5 (I might go War Weaver).
I think I'll stay away from houseruling on Arcane Channelling as otherwise Duskblade is even more feature light and that makes the whole class essentially a 3 level dip. As for Primal Scholar/Unfettered Heroism, I'd actually not come across that combo before, so again, thanks. My groups don't really use Action Points but perhaps that's something we could try - I could definitely take that to the group, with this in mind for down the line.


I think Sublime Chord is the "cleanest" way to get high-level spells after Duskblade 13, since it offers the full Wizard list (and then some) and doesn't start at 1st level spells. That said, I understand the feeling of "we already did that joke" only too well.
I'm coming to the same conclusion, unfortunately! But good PrC is good PrC - if I can find a way to get into it without wasting a level with Bard then that's probably how I'll have to go


You could look at Ur-Priest. Arcane Channeling works with any touch spell you can cast, regardless of class source or power source. You'd take a few levels to really get up to speed—Duskblade 13 already gives you 4th level spells, so you're a minimum of 5 levels into Ur-Priest (ECL 18+) before you get spells that are higher than what Duskblade offered. Technically you'd actually need 6 levels of Ur-Priest to unambiguously outstrip your Duskblade spell level, since Duskblade 17 gives 5ths. You'd barely scrape 7ths at ECL 20, assuming you've got enough WIS to squeeze out a bonus slot. Technically better than Duskblade 20 (give or take needing crazy stats and also likely having significantly overall spells per day), but probably a little bit worse than Sublime Chord, if for no other reason than that SC gives more slots per day than U-P does.

The benefit, of course, would be access to Cleric spells rather than, y'know, Duskblade spells. Clerics have plenty of touch spells (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0456.html), so you might be able to swing that into something interesting, depending on exactly what your goal is. If you don't mind losing even more BAB, you could theoretically jump into Contemplative or other classes that advance divine casting and grant domains after getting your Ur-Priest card. (If you have one specific domain in mind, there's always Divine Crusader instead of Ur-Priest, but to call DC "a good choice" is to perhaps be less of an optimizer and more of an optimist.)



Aside from SC, you're stuck with Beholder Mage, Divine Crusader, Illithid Savant, Blighter or Ur-Priest. I'd go Sublime Chord if only for Irresistible Dance as a level 6 spell (hilarious for high reach forms or any way to hit everyone from range) and fully advanced caster level. Divine Crusader also fits the bill as your desires are specific enough, but Irresistible Dance! (pretty legit coupled with Familiar dropping a scroll of Disjunction).

For UM, the easiest is to just do Spontaneous Wizard via e.g. Spontaneous Divination + Versatile Spellcaster or Uncanny Forethought as your preparing side.
Thanks for this, both - I think Ur-Priest is likely the easiest non-SC to get the accelerated casting. I'd hoped to avoid going Divine for spellcasting. But Beholder Mage might work, especially if said caster is already doing transmutation/polymorph hijinks for multiple Arcane Channellings.


Depending on your cheese tolerance, you might be able to go dumpster-diving with a Chameleon and find sufficiently low-level versions of weird touch spells, but I'm not necessarily convinced that there's enough meat on that bone to be worth the level investment.

Also, for what it's worth, Necrotic Cyst is a touch spell. It's not necessarily a winner on action economy, but I do find the idea of full channeling and giving everyone within arm's reach a Cyst to be slightly entertaining.
I'd not actually thought about Chameleon - that's an interesting twist (and a means by which I wouldn't mind getting Divine casting). If I don't go down the polymorph route, that's pretty nice. I'm going to steer clear from Necrotic Cyst as I've already used a more mind controlling foe.

I really appreciate the support with this. I wonder if anyone can help me with the second character?

Is there any way to get an Ultimate Magus using two spontaneous casters?

Thanks again for all your help :)

[Cosi]

It's dirtier than I'd go as a PC but for an NPC I really love the idea! I need scour the MM to see if there are any other (ideally land based) creatures with a very large number of attacks, but this is a great idea, thank you!

Hydra is probably the way to go then (actually, I should have gone with that off the bat, I just remember Octopus more because of Octopus Druid cheese with Multitasking).


I think I'll stay away from houseruling on Arcane Channelling as otherwise Duskblade is even more feature light and that makes the whole class essentially a 3 level dip.

That's not an unreasonable stance, and in any case the game design issue isn't really on topic here.

[eversilentone]

Hydra is probably the way to go then (actually, I should have gone with that off the bat, I just remember Octopus more because of Octopus Druid cheese with Multitasking).

That's not an unreasonable stance, and in any case the game design issue isn't really on topic here.

Hydra is spot on, thank you. And yes, derailing my own thread - inadvertent talent, apologies!

[Kelb_Panthera]

The answer to your UM question is that it's simply not possible.

UM doesn't require just a prepared arcane caster, it requires an arcane caster that prepares his spells from a spellbook. That's an extreme minority of arcanists; wizard and wu-jen being the only base classes that fit the criteria. There are also a couple PrCs and -maybe- a ranger or paladin with sword of the arcane order but that's it.

Sorry to disappoint. :smallfrown:

[eversilentone]

The answer to your UM question is that it's simply not possible.

UM doesn't require just a prepared arcane caster, it requires an arcane caster that prepares his spells from a spellbook. That's an extreme minority of arcanists; wizard and wu-jen being the only base classes that fit the criteria. There are also a couple PrCs and -maybe- a ranger or paladin with sword of the arcane order but that's it.

Sorry to disappoint. :smallfrown:

I think the Magical Training feat allows you to cast spells (prepared) from a spellbook. However, they're only cantrips. Presumably with Heighten Spell you *could* cast those at the level 2 required to satisfy UM, but I wasn't sure hence the request. Further, the way I read Magical Training it would apply to the character as a whole rather than just one class (unlike, say, Arcane Preparation). You may well be right, that it's not possible, but if anyone would know it's the folks on this board! =D

[Eldariel]

I think the Magical Training feat allows you to cast spells (prepared) from a spellbook. However, they're only cantrips. Presumably with Heighten Spell you *could* cast those at the level 2 required to satisfy UM, but I wasn't sure hence the request. Further, the way I read Magical Training it would apply to the character as a whole rather than just one class (unlike, say, Arcane Preparation). You may well be right, that it's not possible, but if anyone would know it's the folks on this board! =D

Like I said, Wizard can masquerade as a spontaneous caster fairly easily so you can use that. But by strict RAW, one of the classes advanced must cast spells prepared from a spellbook. Now, Magical Training doesn't help since it in no ways alters the casting of any of your classes; it could qualify you in conjunction with e.g. Extra Spell loop, Jacob's Ladder, Heighten + metamagic reducers, or some such, that's trivial, but the advancement still requires a preparing class.

Ways to start casting from a spellbpok include Arcane Preparation and Sword of the Arcane Order. SOtAO doesn't help much since by default, SOtAO only applies to two preparing classes. Check Arcane Preparation - AFB right now so I can't.