Gish Rakshasa Advice, Ideas

[Bedeisbede]

Looking for suggestions/cool ideas for a gish Rakshasa mostly in terms of after i finish abjurant champion. Things to build towards.
Still in character creation.

Already chose to be a level three Abjurant Champion. ( Chaotic good )

I have a fairly good weapon with a wand chamber with a wand of wraithstrike.

Looking for good self buffs other than bear's strength/basic ones i know.

I'm allowed to use mage armour/shield as abjuration, so my ac is fairly high already.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Bite of the werebear and its lower-level versions are comprehensive and powerful melee buffs.

[daremetoidareyo]

Take a peek at the rahkshsa in the tome of battle.

You might have to rework the build, but it's a flavorful gish type

[Efrate]

Check out the latest iron chef. Swiftblade is a dang fine gish prc, might give you some ideas.

[Biggus]

Buffs to have a look at:

Spell Compendium: Nerveskitter, Critical Strike, Create Magic Tattoo, Heroics, Greater Mage Armor, Dragonskin, Girallon's Blessing, Greater/ Superior Resistance, Thunderlance, Ruin Delver's Fortune, Greater Blink, Brilliant Blade, Energy Immunity, Superior Invisibility

Complete Mage: Heart of Air/ Earth/ Fire/ Water (not much good individually, but if you have all of them active at once you gain heavy fortification)

Dragon Magic: Primal Instinct

[Bedeisbede]

Thanks guys, useful advice. I've ended up heading towards swift blade as an abjurant champion (Lvl 3). Making for a interesting character so far. I havent gone for a very optimised build in some senses, althought the thunderlance/powerattack/arcanestrike/hasted-extra attack etc combo is pretty brutal so far. Just to sate any curiousity, in this game we get to either go into a prestige class (some are banned) from level one or pick a race that has a LA and ignore a degree of it depending on the race.

[AlanBruce]

You did mention that your weapon has a wand chamber with Wraithstrike in it? I vaguely recall a ruling in Spell Compendium regarding activating wands which have swift spells contained within.

I think they ruled it was still a standard to activate said wand, so be aware of this or fact check what I just wrote since I had a gish in my game with a similar tactic and although powerful at first, that single rule threw his entire power attack tactic off the loop.

[Crake]

Rakshasa are in a very unique position in that they have both full casting and full bab for their HD. To that end, I would try to extend this advantage as far as I could. 1 level in both spellsword and dragon slayer get you continued full bab and full spellcasting, along with 10% reduced ASF, and a pretty nice immunity to fear, and then I would take all 5 levels in abjurant champion, definitely worth going all the way. Swiftblade I think sounds nicer than it is, when you take into account that you're starting your adventuring career at ECL 14, you're unlikely to see any of the truely interesting abilities that appear later on in the class, while also falling even further behind with casting.

[Biggus]

You did mention that your weapon has a wand chamber with Wraithstrike in it? I vaguely recall a ruling in Spell Compendium regarding activating wands which have swift spells contained within.

I think they ruled it was still a standard to activate said wand, so be aware of this or fact check what I just wrote since I had a gish in my game with a similar tactic and although powerful at first, that single rule threw his entire power attack tactic off the loop.

This is what it says in the DMG and the SpC, but it was later changed in the Rules Compendium to wands taking the same time to activate as the spell stored within them. Some people disregard this as they say that by RAW the RC can't change core rules even though it specifically says it can, so it's a DM call which rule takes precedence.

[Bedeisbede]

In the game so far; i ended up not picking up the weapon that involved a wand of wraithstrike as i didnt feel that i needed it. I definitely have plenty of powerhouse options to expand into should i wish, such as a monks belt for the touch ac.

So far i've been entering melee combat and getting as many thunderlance-arcanestrike-thunderlance-powerattack-combos as i can, generally doing a lot of DPR.

The 20ft range for attacks of oppurtunity helps as well.