Arcane supermount (no dragon mag)

[Twurps]

Inspired by a recent supermount thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?642241-Super-rhinoceros-build) I was going through my own supermount notes again, and I stumbled across a little gem (Or is it?) I had previously overlooked.

That gem: 'Night of the Blue moon' (Waterdeep p81). At lvl 1 it gives a mount, just like a paladin mount, and it stacks with levels in paladin, but more importantly: "In addition, if you do not have a familiar, levels of sorcerer or wizard also stack for purposes of determining the special mount's abilities."

That got me thinking: Would it be possible to drop paladin altogether from a supermount build, and replace it with levels in Wizard/sorcerer. I've always liked the idea of the supermount build, but having to put virtually all your build resources into it means you're left with rather lackluster rider. Being a wizard/sorcerer could alleviate that problem.

The pre-req's we need to get out of the way are atrocious though, and that's where I need help.
Losing the familiar is easy. We want to trade that for an animal companion anyway (UA variant rule). But the other requirements of Either 'NotBM' and/or the build key 'devoted tracker' feat include:
-Turn undead
-Smite evil
-Spontaneous arcane casting.
-BAB+4
-4 feats: Track, craft magic arms and armor, Lunar magic, weapon focus/exotic weapon prof.

I would prefer wizard over sorcerer, if only because martial wizard can help a bit with the feat tax, But that doesn't meat the 'spontaneous' part of the arcane casting. So maybe sorcerer anyway? But the real issue is 'smite evil' and 'Turn undead'. How can I fit those in whilst losing as little caster levels as possible? Paladin 4 would do it, but that kind of defeats the purpose.

So that's where I need help: Short of summoning Pazuzu, how do get this idea to work?
All first party material allowed, but no dragon magazines. (As any dragon magazine build would blow this whole thing clear out of the water)

[Anthrowhale]

Turn Undead can be accessed via a level in Sacred Exorcist.

Spontaneous arcane casting is provide by sorcerer or by trading a 5th level wizard feat for the ability to spontaneously cast divination spells.

BAB and feats are just a matter of allocation so the tricky part seems to be smite evil. I'm not sure how to do that on an arcane caster. The closest thing that comes to mind is Silver Pyromancer ("Smiting Spell") and the cleric variant that trades turn undead for smite evil.

Edit: The Arcane variant of Demonwrecker looks good. It costs a feat (spell penetration), but it gives "Spell Smite" which is "...the ability to smite evil once per day...". Alternatively, Witch Hunter of Holy Scourge give something that should qualify while costing a level of advancement rather than a feat.

[loky1109]

BAB and feats are just a matter of allocation so the tricky part seems to be smite evil.

Celestial creature for +2 LA?

[Gruftzwerg]

Inspired by a recent supermount thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?642241-Super-rhinoceros-build)

I would prefer wizard over sorcerer, if only because martial wizard can help a bit with the feat tax, But that doesn't meat the 'spontaneous' part of the arcane casting. So maybe sorcerer anyway?

Imho unless you need the feats (Martial Wizard) go for Sorcerer instead. This lets you share (Greater) Arcane Fusion (a personal spell) with your familiar/companion. You decide the spells and make all casting decisions before you share (a duplicate of) the spell. Now your animal companion can basically cast any spell you cast too (via Arcane Fusion).

And then there are other sorcerer only spells (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=4941.0)like Wing of Cover or even a heal spell. Look up the link to see Sorcerer only spells.

[Anthrowhale]

How about:

Human Ranger 1/Martial Wizard 9/Sacred Exorcist 1/Arcane Demonwrecker 1/Knight of the Blue Moon 1/Wizard 7

Feats & notable class abilities
Human: ??
Ranger 1: Track and wild empathy
1: ??
Martial Wizard 1: Exotic Weapon Proficiency
3: Lunar Magic
[S]Wizard 5: Spontaneous Divination
6: Craft magic arms&Armor
9: Spell Penetration
Sacred Exorcist 1: Turn Undead
Arcane Demonwrecker 1: Spell Smite
12. ??
Knight of the Blue Moon 1: Special Mount
15. Devoted Tracker

Level 19 wizard casting, level 8 animal companion, level 17 special mount.

[sleepyphoenixx]

You can get Smite Evil with the Celestia prestige domain from SpC, but it'll cost you two domain slots.
Still useful if you're dipping cleric for TU anyway to get both out of the way in one level.

Otherwise there's also a couple of templates that grant it (half-celestial comes to mind, it's 2 LA in BoED).

[Khatoblepas]

I wonder if there's a way to combine this with High One Warrior Wizard from the Champions of Valor Web enhancement. It requires two paladin levels, but it gives your special mount the ability to count as your familiar (without being a familiar), allowing you to use all the neat familiar buff spells on it. Also it might make Lurking Familiar good?? If you ride your familiar mount, they have cover and can hide since they're in your space, even if they're much bigger than you.

[Twurps]

Thanks for all the good suggestions!


Celestial creature for +2 LA?
How did I not think of templates at all? this template in particular is ironic, because a paladin can use an ACF to get this for his mount. So I've read it a few times last couple of days. +2LA is a bit steep though. and this build is slow to get started as it is, so I prefer other options.




How about:
'good build'
Level 19 wizard casting, level 8 animal companion, level 17 special mount.

I like it! I had never heard of arcane demonwrecker, and it appears there's a gap in my collection, as I didn't even have the book available.
There's 2 free feats in the build, Which can be used to skip ranger, and insert Beastmaster, for a better AC progression. So this is what I ended up with:
Wizard5/Arcane demonwrecker/Wizard3/Sacred exorcist/Knight of the blue moon/Beastmaster/wizard 8.

Feats & notable class abilities
Human: Track
1: Lunar magic
Martial Wizard 1: weapon focus
3: spell penetration
Wizard 5: Spontaneous Divination
Arcane Demonwrecker 1: Spell Smite
6: Craft magic arms&Armor
9: skill focus
Sacred Exorcist 1: Turn Undead
Knight of the Blue Moon 1: Special Mount
12. Devoted tracker
Martial wizard10: mounted combat
15. natural bond

There's a few skills that need some cross class purchasing. but it should all work out. (A decent INT seems a safe assumption on a wizard).
Level 19 wizard casting, level 15 animal companion, level 17 special mount.


You can get Smite Evil with the Celestia prestige domain from SpC, but it'll cost you two domain slots.
Still useful if you're dipping cleric for TU anyway to get both out of the way in one level.

Otherwise there's also a couple of templates that grant it (half-celestial comes to mind, it's 2 LA in BoED).

Upon looking it up, it's actually the Elysium domain. But that's a really good solution too.
putting in 1 level of cleric would cost a caster level, but save 2 prestige classes and accompanying feat/skillpoint tax compared to the build above.

cleric1/Wizard6/Knight of the blue moon/beastmaster/wizard9/windrider
Would end up with: lvl17 casting, level 15 animal companion, level 17 special mount. the difference being: we've lost 2 caster levels, in return for a 2HD to our mount (with windrider).

All in all both build trade in 3 levels of AC progression. Failing to make the top tier for the animal companion, and both build are slow to get going compared to the 'regular' build. But lvl9 wizard spells is nothing to sneeze at either :P

[thethird]

Inspired by a recent supermount thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?642241-Super-rhinoceros-build) I was going through my own supermount notes again, and I stumbled across a little gem (Or is it?) I had previously overlooked.

That gem: 'Night of the Blue moon' (Waterdeep p81). At lvl 1 it gives a mount, just like a paladin mount, and it stacks with levels in paladin, but more importantly: "In addition, if you do not have a familiar, levels of sorcerer or wizard also stack for purposes of determining the special mount's abilities."


I remember trying to fidget around with, but never actually building something worth it. There is also the High One Warrior Wizard substitution levels:


Wizardly Smiting (Su): At 2nd level, a High One warrior-wizard can smite evil as a paladin. Her wizard levels stack with her paladin levels for the purpose of determining how many times per day she can use this ability.

This benefit replaces the 1st-level spell that a standard wizard gains at 2nd level. From this point forward, the character has one fewer 1st-level spells that she can prepare per day than a standard wizard does.

[...]

Familiar Mount: If a High One warrior-wizard has access to a special mount based on her paladin levels, this creature gains the characteristics of a familiar as well as those of a paladin mount. The High One warrior-wizard must dismiss her familiar (if she has one) to gain this benefit, but she takes no penalties for doing so. She then uses her wizard level to determine the natural armor bonus, Intelligence, and special abilities that her familiar should have and applies those to her special paladin mount. Her High One warriorwizard levels count as wizard levels for this purpose.

The mount's natural armor bonuses from both sources stack, and it gains the greater of the two Intelligence scores. Thus, the mount has all the abilities of a special mount appropriate to the character's paladin level and a familiar appropriate to her wizard level. Bonuses of the same type do not stack, except as noted above, and the mount cannot gain the same ability twice; it takes the better version to which it is entitled.

The High One warrior-wizard does not lose experience points if the familiar mount is killed because she can summon a new one according to the rules given for paladins.

This benefit replaces the bonus feat that a standard wizard gains at 5th level.

So basically if you can get both of these abilities your wizard levels would progress your special mount and your familiar (mount).

You can then get an animal companion, there is an UA alternate class feature for wizard to replace the familiar for animal companion. Then grab devoted tracker to have it be the same creature.

That gets level wizards to progress special mount, familiar, and animal companion (at half speed) on the same creature.

[Twurps]

I remember trying to fidget around with, but never actually building something worth it. There is also the High One Warrior Wizard substitution levels:

So basically if you can get both of these abilities your wizard levels would progress your special mount and your familiar (mount).

You can then get an animal companion, there is an UA alternate class feature for wizard to replace the familiar for animal companion. Then grab devoted tracker to have it be the same creature.

That gets level wizards to progress special mount, familiar, and animal companion (at half speed) on the same creature.

Smite on a wizard, that got me real excited for a second, until I read up on the ACF, and it required 2 levels of paladin! Meaning by the time we qualify, we already have smiting.
Being able to combine familiar progression looks nice, but upon closer examination, that's a bit lackluster too.
Let's run down the list:
Int boost: up to 15, overlaps for a large part with the int boost (up to 9) for paladin mount.
Improved evasion, share spell, empathic link, spell resistance: paladin mount has this already
deliver touch spells: nice, but less useful on a mount since I expect to be, well, mounted on it anyway.
Alertness, Speak with master, speak with animals of its kind, scry on familiar: Lackluster
NA bonus: We already get +20, but an extra +10 never hurts.

so is it worth losing 2 levels of wizard for +10NA, +6INT, and some miscellaneous stuff on a mount (And Divine Grace for ourselves!)? I'm leaning towards 'no' atm. Still adding this ACF to my notes though. (from: Champions of Valor web enhancement btw, in case others are interested).

[Anthrowhale]

<better build>

Getting Devoted Tracker down to level 12 seems great.

There's a little issue here in that you don't qualify for either Weapon Focus(heavy mace) or Exotic Weapon Proficiency(shuriken) at first level now. You could however take mounted combat at first level and delay skill focus until later?

Beastmaster also has some funky wording.

...her beastmaster class levels stack with class levels from all other classes that grant an animal companion.
The 'other class that grants an animal companion' is wizard for which you have 16 levels and beastmaster makes that 17. Not directly stated: is AC level 17/2 = 8 or level 17? But it seems like you must provide a full level from the paragraph immediately prior, implying that the latter interpretation (level 17) is the only one that's valid.

In the example that follows, the +3 bonus from beastmaster is applied to a druid/beastmaster. Hence, your animal companion will be level 20(=16 wizard levels +1 beastmaster level +3 beastmaster bonus).

[Twurps]

Getting Devoted Tracker down to level 12 seems great.

There's a little issue here in that you don't qualify for either Weapon Focus(heavy mace) or Exotic Weapon Proficiency(shuriken) at first level now. You could however take mounted combat at first level and delay skill focus until later?

Good catch, but no easy fix I'm afraid. I need that feat for entry into 'KotBM'. I can't swap it with any of the other feats I take before that point, as none of them are fighter bonus feats. Swapping with mounted combat is a possibility, but that would delay KotBM for at least 2 more levels, so Devoted tracker is back to lvl 15. sigh. I'm starting to like the cleric dip more and more.



Beastmaster also has some funky wording.

The 'other class that grants an animal companion' is wizard for which you have 16 levels and beastmaster makes that 17. Not directly stated: is AC level 17/2 = 8 or level 17? But it seems like you must provide a full level from the paragraph immediately prior, implying that the latter interpretation (level 17) is the only one that's valid.

In the example that follows, the +3 bonus from beastmaster is applied to a druid/beastmaster. Hence, your animal companion will be level 20(=16 wizard levels +1 beastmaster level +3 beastmaster bonus).

That might actually be RAW, I'd have to look into the exact wording of the wizard ACF, but the reading I would go with as a DM (and the one I'm pretty sure my DM will go for should I ever play this) is that wizard levels count for 1/2 regardless of Beastmaster's wording. Beastmaster counts for full, and adds 3 (again full). So I end up with 16/2+1+3=12 (and natural bond for +3 makes that 15.)

[Anthrowhale]

I can't swap it with any of the other feats I take before that point, as none of them are fighter bonus feats.
Can you just drop Skill Focus?

[Jervis]

I know you don’t want Dragon but would Dragon Compendium be acceptable? It’s generally considered less jank than dragon mag and more people accept it due to it being a actually printed book.

If so then Sha’ir makes it trivially easy via prestige Paladin since they could as both arcane and divine

[Anthrowhale]

I know you don’t want Dragon but would Dragon Compendium be acceptable? It’s generally considered less jank than dragon mag and more people accept it due to it being a actually printed book.

If so then Sha’ir makes it trivially easy via prestige Paladin since they could as both arcane and divine

Casting protection from evil as a divine spell is slightly tricky, but a couple levels of Geomancer plausibly addresses this.

[Twurps]

Can you just drop Skill Focus?

Nope, it's a requirement for beastmaster. And I need beastmaster for wild empathy, so I can qualify for devoted tracker. All this because I wanted to drop a level a ranger. Sigh...


I know you don’t want Dragon but would Dragon Compendium be acceptable? It’s generally considered less jank than dragon mag and more people accept it due to it being a actually printed book.

If so then Sha’ir makes it trivially easy via prestige Paladin since they could as both arcane and divine

I don't have access to Dragon compendium. But I do have an issue with prestige paladin. As that's a class that shouldn't normally be available imho.

IF we go the 'alternative rulesets' route, I think there's something really good to be made with 'faith scion' from UA, which would combine excellent with prestige paladin, but that's a whole other build/topic.

[Akal Saris]

Interesting, I've never seen Knight of the Blue Moon, but those are some VICIOUS prereqs!

There's a few Dragon Magazine feats which might help, though I'm not sure any of them exactly slot into the builds that you're looking at. However, with theurgic bond, it might be more feasible to take 1 level in a class that grants an AC (like Beastmaster) and then apply theurgic bond for wizard levels, instead of taking the AC alternative option for wizard? You lose another CL this way but the AC could probably hit max progression instead of 15.

Holy Mount(Dragon 325): Any other divine spellcasting classes count for progressing Paladin's Special Mount.

Theurgic Mount(Dragon 325): Arcane spellcasting classes count for progressing Paladin's Special Mount.

Theurgic Bond(Dragon 325): Choose 1: Spellcasting classes with familiar progression counts towards progressing animal companion. OR Spellcasting classes with animal companion progression count towards progressing familiar. Can take once per animal companion or familiar.

[NinjaGuy]

I've been looking at a way to add in Arcane Hierophant, and I think it'd be doable, if not tight with the prerequisites. It's just much too late for me to see it through right now. But the way I see it you could still have the 9th level Wizard casting (losing a few CLs) gain 12 levels of Druid casting, Wildshape, and the ability to call your companion your mount and familiar, and even if none of them are maxed, I'd imagine the combination of the 3 would be more of a boost if someone could make it work just right. If the goal is having a mean mount, and a more playable rider, this might be better. Arcane Hierophant makes you dismiss your familiar, so you don't count as having one, but you still apply the benefits it would have gotten to your Animal Companion.

Maybe Druid 1/ Wizard 5/ Druid +2/ Arcane Hierophant 1/ Arcane Demonwrecker 1/ Sacred Exorcist 1/ Knight of the Blue Moon 1/ Arcane Hierophant +8

Human: Track
1 - Lunar Magic
Martial Wizard 1: Weapon Focus
3 - Spell Penetration
6 - Practised Spellcaster? or Knowledge Devotion? (You're using lots of the good ones already anyway)
9 - Craft Magic Arms & Armor
12 - Devoted Tracker
15 - Natural Bond
18 - Enpell Familiar (Dragon Compendium, I know, but online pdfs?)? or Natural Spell?

Not yet optimized, but gets:

17th level Wizard casting
12th level Druid casting
14th level familiar goodies
15th level Animal Companion goodies
and only 6th level Special Mount goodies.. is there a Natural Bond for mounts?
12th level Wildshaping

Hell, depending on how your DM would rule on how the Changeling's Morphic Familiar substitution level would interact with Companion Familiar, you could shuffle the feats down and really profit...

[Pezzo]

If you can change alignment and consider the shaman's animal companion the same as a druid's animal companion you can do this.
NG elf or half-elf shaman 3, wizard 3, ranger 1, wildrunner 1, arcane hierophant 10, change alignment for prestige paladin 2
You'd be limited to 7th level spells, or 8th level with versatile spellcaster, but you'd have a big special familiar companion mount (with familiar bonuses as a 13th level wizard's familiar, 13th level druid's animal companion, and 5th level paladin's mount)
Must be noted that the arcane hierophant's familar companion doesn't get the animal companion's abilities by RAW, but in the example character it does. Also if you get an unusual mount you get the much faster paladin mount progression from DMG p.205.

edit: ignore this, it doesn't work because it doesn't meet the prerequisite for devoted tracker until level 19, you could enter paladin earlier, but you'd lose an arcane hierophant level.

[Twurps]

In the past I have played around with the idea of getting familiar progression in a supermount build as well, but the problem (without dragon mag) is: it inevitably costs paladin mount progression to do so. And paladin mount progression is just so much better than familiar progression. specially so because many of the familiar abilities are already/also gained by a mount and/or animal companion.

Of course with dragon magazine on the table, everything changes, Arcane hierophant can suddenly progress paladin mount as an arcane caster (with theurgic mount) and as a divine caster (with Holy mount) and becomes fantastic. That's why I've specifically said 'no dragon mag' in the title. Nothing beats that.

[Seward]

elp.
Losing the familiar is easy. We want to trade that for an animal companion anyway (UA variant rule). But the other requirements of Either 'NotBM' and/or the build key 'devoted tracker' feat include:
-Turn undead
-Smite evil
-Spontaneous arcane casting.
-BAB+4
-4 feats: Track, craft magic arms and armor, Lunar magic, weapon focus/exotic weapon prof.

I would prefer wizard over sorcerer, if only because martial wizard can help a bit with the feat tax,


Um. The need for the base trick to be wizard or sorcerer (not Beguiler or Warmage or Duskblade or Bard or whatever) limit you quite a bit on entry. Also you've already traded away your familiar so you can't get weapon focus from stalwart sorcerer.

Ok first thing, it's got to be sorcerer. You have to stay with wizard 5 levels and that's 4 levels too long when building the other requirements and even if you can swap the L1 scribe scroll feat for one of your other feats needed it's not going to solve the need to mix in a spont casting class at 0 bab, good will save, delayed casting progression blah blah blah with the rest of your build.

What you want is probably a cleric level with domains that pick up most of your feats, smite evil and of course provides turn undead, or alternately a paladin level that gets turning at L1 and maybe track. Or perhaps a smiting ranger. Or a domain druid. Although war domain won't work because Selune and Mystra aren't helpful in that regard, and domain druid is most useful with sun domain, which is also out.

Maybe I'm overthinking - keep it simple

Human, Lawful Good, Patron Deity = Mystra
Human Feat Lunar Magic
1 Sor1 (spont arcane casting, swap familiar for animal companion)
L1 feat - exotic weapon proficiency Shuriken
2 Ranger1 Track, Wild Empathy
3 Paladin1 Smite Evil, Lay on Hands, Detect evil
L3 Feat Devoted Tracker
4 sor2
5 sor3
6 sor4 BAB4 requirement reached
L6 feat cr arms armor
L7 Good to go with Knight of the Blue Moon 1 and all of your desired feats etc for eventual supermount.

If you prefer, Monk1, Favored Soul1, Ninja 1, Fighter 1, Wizard1 (fighter feat variant), rogue 1 (fighter feat variant) all offer Shruriken proficiency and let you get in at level 8 with a nonhuman race without exceeding the catchup that natural bond and practiced spellcaster provide. Wizard 1 also advances your mount, which may be desirable, (and sometimes saves a feat if you pick the right specialty and want one of those feats) although monk and favored soul1 both have a lot to offer in terms of saves and either casting or bonus feats.

Be careful mutting out further or taking anything other than wiz sor or something that advances your mount, tempting as it is. (Ultimate Trickster3 I guess would only cost you 1 more level of progression in both sor and animal companion and might be ok for a human who got in at level 7 but mostly it is a bad idea) You will probably want practiced spellcaster and natural bond in there somewhere eventually to keep your power level up to snuff.

edit - whoops. Craft arms and armor has to be pushed to level 9 for the build as shown, or alternately you take practiced spellcaster at L1 and take one of the various shuriken options at L7