Sorcerer with a martial weapon?

[metis1]

First off, thanks folks for all of the amazing information I've been able to absorb through reading the forums for years.

I've finally got something interesting that I need some brilliant ideas on.

I've got a level 10 vanilla typical weak human sorcerer who's probably LN. (He's got amnesia, which is kinda a hoot to play) Party play wise he's been much more blaster and polymorph the rogue into a hydra with some general utility kinda stuff. It turns out in the story arc last session that he's got a really nice intelligent full blade and gauntlets that he kinda has to wear, and I need to figure out a reasonable way for him to deal with this. The sword and bracers together allow the full blade to be treated as a martial weapon, and grant +5 untyped AC (along with a passel of other bonuses) but have ego that I may need to fight with a bit since they're LG but that's a LONG side discussion.

I'm near enough to level 11 in XP that taking a side class isn't crazy, although the long term plan ( I think) is to stick heavily to sorcerer rather than go full on multiclass.

In general, I'm thinking keeping the sword in a handy haversack so I can actually carry it (by itself the full blade is about my max load) until we can find something like a scabbard of storage or scabbard of concealment. (I'm thinking it's not gonna be happy being in a haversack)

I'm thinking the use/new SOP for my character will be case a few crowd control/ softening up spells, Polymorph into a good combat form and wade in. I've already got still spell, so I'm not as worried about being able to cast while wielding, but I need to pick up a class that allows martial weapons, and maybe something resembling armor and a dex bonus. Budget wise we're not looking at the 10K GP items, most of our recent loot needs to go to the rest of the party and they've got some shopping to do, but we need to outfit me enough to make the sword actually useful to the party

Things I need some ideas/help on:
scabbard of weight/size reduction from a reasonable 3.5 sourcebook?
a class that allows for (at least one) martial weapon proficiency or makes sense with high CHA-- human paragon? swashbuckler? battle sorcerer? spellsword?
caster friendly armor worth wearing? twilight mithral chain shirt? eternal wand of mage armor? (not sure eternal wand of greater is in the budget)
something else I should be looking at? floating sheild? ioun stones?

if i take one level of battle sorcerer, I'd assume that I get additional (4) 0st and (2) 1st level spells per day and learn a new (3) 0st and (1) 1st level spell? and then could go back to normal sorcerer for future levels and have normal progression, effectively being a sorcerer level behind normal but having a few extra low level spells?
I'm not sure if I can take spellsword as I'm not certain i've actually killed something with a martial weapon, although it's possible I did something useful with a club, dagger or crossbow early on... (although our DM is pretty reasonable, so if i can explain the idea he may go for it anyway)

after a level of something to get past the weapon (and armor?) proficiency master transmografist seems like it might be very useful to switch over to if i'm going to be using polymorph a bunch...

thoughts? brilliant ideas?

[Darrin]

scabbard of weight/size reduction from a reasonable 3.5 sourcebook?


The Cloak of Weaponry (2300 GP, MIC) is an extra-dimensional storage item that has room for one weapon up to 25 lbs. Swift action to activate, but it doesn't say if that includes actually drawing/stowing the weapon.

As far as weight reduction goes... special materials such as mithral or darkwood can cut down on the weight, but you might be better off increasing your carrying capacity. Belt of Wide Earth (8000 GP, MIC) can double it, and you can add Easy Travel (+1500 GP, MIC) to your armor for additional carrying capacity.



a class that allows for (at least one) martial weapon proficiency or makes sense with high CHA-- human paragon? swashbuckler? battle sorcerer? spellsword?


Battle Sorcerer gives you a single martial weapon proficiency (has to be a light or one-handed weapon), but if you've already taken levels in Normal Sorcerer, then I don't think Battle Sorcerer is available to you. Swashbuckler is not a popular dip, as it doesn't have the same armor proficiencies as Fighter, Paladin or Crusader. Usually you're trying to use one of those dips to pick up all martial weapons and all armor proficiencies to get into Spellsword 1, and go into Abjurant Champion from there. If you skip Spellsword and specifically need Weapon Finesse, then it might be worth a dip for the extra skill points and class skills. Human Paragon is decent if all you need is a single martial weapon proficiency, but Ruathar (Races of the Wild) is considered a stronger pick for that because you don't lose a caster level that way. However, your MWP is restricted to longsword, rapier, longbow, or shortbow.

If you're willing to spend a feat or two on Dodge/Iron Will (maybe pick up the latter via Otyugh Hole), then Dragon Slayer (Draconomicon) gets you BAB +1, CL +1, and all martial/armor proficiencies.



caster friendly armor worth wearing? twilight mithral chain shirt? eternal wand of mage armor? (not sure eternal wand of greater is in the budget)
something else I should be looking at? floating sheild? ioun stones?


Mithral breastplate with Feycraft (+500 GP, DMGII), Githcraft (+600 GP, DMGII), and a Thistledown Suit (250 GP, Races of the Wild) has 0% ASF.

You can squeeze out a slightly better AC with mithral chain shirt + dastana + chahar-aina, but some DMs won't allow you to stack both the dastana and chahar-aina on the same base armor.

You can add one or two dwarven buckler-axes with wand chambers, although that's more for the wand chambers than the +1 shield bonus. You don't need to be proficient with the buckler-axes as weapons to take advantage of the shield bonus (or the wand chambers).

After that... Amulet of Natural Armor +1/Ring of Protection +1, or just pay for a natural armor bonus on your current torso-slot item and a deflection bonus on your current shoulder-slot item. Spending money on armor class after that point tends to be counter-productive, so consider adding some armor spikes with the Smoking weapon property (+1 enhancement, Lords of Darkness) for the continuous 20% miss chance.



if i take one level of battle sorcerer, I'd assume that I get additional (4) 0st and (2) 1st level spells per day and learn a new (3) 0st and (1) 1st level spell? and then could go back to normal sorcerer for future levels and have normal progression, effectively being a sorcerer level behind normal but having a few extra low level spells?


I'm not sure you can take Battle Sorcerer levels once you're already a Normal Sorcerer. If you can... that would be something you'd have to hammer out with your DM.



I'm not sure if I can take spellsword as I'm not certain i've actually killed something with a martial weapon, although it's possible I did something useful with a club, dagger or crossbow early on... (although our DM is pretty reasonable, so if i can explain the idea he may go for it anyway)


Spellsword is going to require a Fighter, Paladin, or Crusader dip. The Special requirement for Spellsword is, "Must have defeated a foe through force of arms alone, without recourse to spellcasting." You'll want to note that "defeated", "force of arms" and "foe" are not exactly clearly defined. You could hire an NPC stableboy for 15 CP, challenge him to a friendly round of "fisticuffs" or a "practice fight", use only subdual strikes/weapons, and satisfy the requirement that way.



after a level of something to get past the weapon (and armor?) proficiency master transmografist seems like it might be very useful to switch over to if i'm going to be using polymorph a bunch...


Master Transmogrifist loses too many caster levels (by which I mean, too many = greater than zero). Sorcerers are already a level behind wizards, losing any more caster levels can be crippling.

Fiend-Blooded (Heroes of Horror) is popular with some sorcerers, as it expands their limited spell selection without losing caster levels (just don't take the last level). Ruathar (Races of the Wild), even if you aren't using it to qualify for another PrC, is usually better than taking 3 more levels of Sorcerer. Once you have the BAB, Abjurant Champion (Complete Mage) is a popular choice. If you can scrape up enough skill points for the Knowledge requirements, Paragnostic Apostle (Complete Champion) might be worth a look.

[Falontani]

haha this sounds like a fun campaign

Since your about to take level 11 you should be able to swap out a first level spell for the spell Master's Touch, which grants you proficiency in any weapon or shield you are wielding.

If you are trying to turn yourself into a gish then your best bet would to pick up a level in a class with weapon prof (my suggestion is Crusader, although Warblade would work) and then take levels in Abjurant Champion or Jade Phoenix Mage.

(Tome of Battle) Jade Phoenix Mage is a non evil (so your sword won't hate you) gish that loses a total of 2 spell levels (3 with the dip) yet grants you many abilities that can be used in melee, and some stances that are nice. Since your level 10 your IL is 5, your dip will allow you to take up to third level maneuvers/stances* and then if you take 9 levels in jade phoenix mage your IL will end up as 14, giving you access to a few 7th level maneuvers and the jade phoenix mage stances (sadly your 1 level off from getting Emerald Immolation, which is just fun).

(Complete Mage) Abjurant Champion is the gish class. For each level you put in Abjurant Champion spells of the abjuration school (and most DMs are fine with mage armor since the writers of the class thought it worked with mage armor) that grant AC increase the AC granted by 1. So at level 5 in the class with a casting of Greater Mage Armor and Shield you have +11 armor bonus to AC, and +9 shield bonus to AC. At level 5 your caster level and your BAB are the same number, whichever was higher. And you lose no casting from taking abjurant champion (except the dip you needed to enter)

Both of these classes will augment your character without taking too much away from your sorcerer casting while still giving you access to the blade.

Other notes: Spellsword is only a single level long for spellcasters, otherwise its for a more martial version of a gish, taking Item Familiar and choosing your sword would be a powerful move, but please speak with your DM before you take the feat

[metis1]

it is a fun campaign. *REALLY* glad now that I had wings of cover when the leich targeted me with disintegrate a few levels back. realistically I think I'm 1 or 2 sessions from level 11, it depends on how much XP we got last weekend.

cloak of weaponry is a possibility, but is problematic with cloak of resistance, hence I was looking at/for the scabbards also having an intelligent weapon at least with it's hilt out seems prudent to keep t happy. something akin to a handy haversack but looks like a dagger instead of a sword as tall as me?

I really only need one martial weapon, fullblade, so finesse isn't an issue, and unless I'm going to be getting my arcane failure down on the armor, light is probably fine.

possible class dips:
Battle sorcerer may not be available, that seems unclear.
Spellsword 1 seems less crazy followed up with Abjurant Champion, if i can talk the DM into it via some early MOB i probably killed with a cross bow before I had firey burst. I'm not sure beating up the stable boy would work with the character, but i might be able to work up something.
Crusader *might* be worth the loss of a level of spells, i'm not sure if jade phoenix's loss again is worth that, i need to look at the stances.
Human Paragon has the ding of a caster level. but again might be OK with abjurant champion

glitches on classes:
Rauthar doesn't work as it doesn't offer Fullblade proficiency (the only reason I'm going this route).
DragonSlayer would be brilliant if I could scrounge up 2 spare feats, even for a one level dip. :(
fiendblooded doesn't like good characters.
I'm not keen on the transmografist level drop but it seemed potentially useful, maybe not as much as hoped.

Mithral BP or chain shirt will probably depend on DM's in game shoping options, but having feycraft, githcraft, twilight and thistledown as options might get me down to 0% ASF and the dastana and chahar-aina are good options to keep an eye peeled for.

adding in more armour is moot unless I can wrangle strength or carrying capacity. its not implausible to get a belt of the wide earth made in party, but easy travel is cheaper if we can get useful armor made...

with spellsword I could take the 10% ASF of basic mithral chain augmented with easy travel to buy some AC. that seems more budget friendly to the rest of the party

grand scheme of things I was always going to go straight sorcerer and avoid combat, so this is going to be an interesting switch. I haven't played a real melee for years.

[ericgrau]

You don't need still spell to cast while wielding a weapon, even that huge beast. You may hold it in one hand as a free action, cast, then go back to wielding it in two hands as a free action. You can't swing it with 1 hand, but you can HOLD it with 1 hand. But casting in armor does require still spell for most spells.

[metis1]

another option might be to retrain a 1st level spell as masters touch and make certain to get whatever armor I can find down to 0%ASF.

Given my druthers, the character doesn't go full gish, but stays a useful potent caster who in a pinch will polymorph into something like a war troll and take off your head. -- The mage who can briefly dish out physical damage, but would rather tag the baddies with a fell weaken sculpted fireball.

Overall my options will be somewhat steered by my GM and the storyarc, but I'd like to keep things on a reasonable path to not end up with a tier 6 sloppy gish, and not miss a clever solution.

spellsword dip or 1st as masters touch and stick with sorcerer are ahead in my mind, but human paragon and battle sorcerer both kinda make role play sense in different ways.

[DwarvenWarCorgi]

While technically 3.0, Weightless Scabbard in Arms & Equipment Guide (pg138) is what you're looking for.

[Falontani]

I'd talk to your dm. Swordsage + jade Phoenix mage may be the type of path he'd like you to go, or it very well could be human paragon.
I like the jade Phoenix mage and I'm obviously both biased and not there, however it could fit thematically and story wise from what little I have heard.

[Deophaun]

cloak of weaponry is a possibility, but is problematic with cloak of resistance
It shouldn't be. Combining the effects into a single item is free (MIC, pg 233-234).

Also, you can put the sizing enhancement on your weapon (MIC, pg 43), for 5k, keep your weapon as Fine or Diminutive size, and then bring it back to Medium as a swift action.

[Darrin]

cloak of weaponry is a possibility, but is problematic with cloak of resistance, hence I was looking at/for the scabbards also having an intelligent weapon at least with it's hilt out seems prudent to keep t happy. something akin to a handy haversack but looks like a dagger instead of a sword as tall as me?


You can add a resistance bonus to the Cloak of Weaponry (or any other shoulder/torso item) for the same cost as buying a Cloak of Resistance. See "Adding Common Item Effects to Existing Items", page 233 in the Magic Item Compendium.

Hmm. If we can get the fullblade down to 20 lbs, you could use the Glove of the Master Strategist (3600 GP, Ghostwalk) with it.

Hmm. Can you put Sizing (+5000 GP, MIC) on the fullblade? You can drop the size to 1/2 or 1/4 or 1/8 weight, and then when you want to attack, all you need is a swift action to restore it to full size.



possible class dips:
Battle sorcerer may not be available, that seems unclear.
Spellsword 1 seems less crazy followed up with Abjurant Champion, if i can talk the DM into it via some early MOB i probably killed with a cross bow before I had firey burst. I'm not sure beating up the stable boy would work with the character, but i might be able to work up something.


"Defeat" can still be interpreted in different ways. You could also find an NPC Spellsword, explain your interest in his profession, and challenge him a duel to "first blood", subdual-only, etc.

Another option I forgot to mention: Duskblade 1 is proficient with martial weapons and all armors, and could be used to get into Spellsword.

Crusader *might* be worth the loss of a level of spells, i'm not sure if jade phoenix's loss again is worth that, i need to look at the stances.
Human Paragon has the ding of a caster level. but again might be OK with abjurant champion



DragonSlayer would be brilliant if I could scrounge up 2 spare feats, even for a one level dip. :(


If you pick up Iron Will from Otyugh Hole, then it's only 1 feat. Sounds like he's already in play, though... you mentioned amnesia, so maybe he could suddenly remember he was imprisoned for a week?

[farothel]

You can also pick the feats martial weapon proficiency and the correct armour proficiency the next time you're allowed to take feats. That solves your problem with the weapon and armour and you don't need to lose a level in sorcerer for it.

As to the weight, try picking up a belt of giant strenght or something like that. It will make it easier for you to hit something (as your attack bonus will also go up) and make it easier to carry stuff. Two for the price of one.

[Maat Mons]

The skillful weapon ability (Complete Arcane, p144) gives the wielder proficiency with the weapon. It also ups your base attack bonus, which not only makes you more accurate, but also gives you an extra attack.

Strongarm bracers (Magic Item Compendium, p139) let you wield weapons as if you were one size category larger. That very well might be exactly what the bracers you have are.

Stalwart sorcerer (Complete Mage, p36) would give you proficiency with one martial weapon in exchange for losing one spell known of your highest level. You're supposed to take it a 1st level, but maybe your DM will let you rejigger things?

If you want the damage of a big weapon without these headaches, there's always the greater mighty wallop spell (Races of the Dragon, p115). I makes a bludgeoning weapon deal damage as if larger, but doesn't actually make it bigger or heavier.

[metis1]

updates from chat with DM and some notes:

this is a NICE Fullblade & gauntlet combo (partial stats combined: +4 full blade, +2 untyped STR, +5untyped AC, brilliant energy, wield fullblade as martial weapon, 6/day bless, 3/day hold person & invisibility purge 1/day 10d6 fireball & dismissal, DR5/magic, fire resist 30, cold 20, intelligent and telepathic with wearer, dark vision & blindsight 120') so i'm not going to be able to really mod them - they're legendary to the world, and paint a 100 mile bullseye on my sorcerer, who they happen to like.

DM forgot some XP last session that I can level to 11. (the wizard and my sorcerer stayed up late burning all of our remaining spells to destroy an evil throne which wasn't factored in) Barring us accidentally killing something that's supposed to escape I won't hit 12 for a while.

I'm 90% sold on at least one level of Spellsword for martial weapon proficiency unless someone has a brilliant maneuver granting class that includes a level of existing spell class (for Jade Phoenix).

In talking with GM about equipment and character limitations and pondering other shopping needs in the party (with the new party goals involving this sword) he's going to determine what we can find in the friendly fort we're currently at. Extra dimensional space is new to this world, but we're friends with one of the dragons who introduced it and happens to be at the fort at present. So - depending on what exists there I'm looking for - except for the last item it'll be up to the DM for what's available:
-the best mithril armor of easy travel that is in town (and can get to a 10% ACF) and/or a +2/+4 strength bonus item
-have the dragon enchant some sort of sheath that will reduce the size (and weight?) of the sword to make it a little less obvious but still leave the hilt exposed so it can "see" with blindsight (rather than be stuck in a handy haversack or cloak of weaponry)
-find some reasonable way to quicken Shield spell so that I can cast Shield and Polymorph in the same round and get into a useful high Str/Dex/Natural AC form in a round and start swinging.