TOM/TOB gish's

[RagnaroksChosen]

Hey question all are there any good TOM/TOB gishes or classes from those two books that synergies well?

I was thinking about a character that was a Shadow caster, and a Swordsage with the Shadow discipline thing... Unfortunately I'm not near my books At the moment.

I'm sure Binder gishes are probably gritty good. I wonder if any one made a trunamer/swordsage?

[Draz74]

Hmmm. Good luck with this ... I don't see it being very effective. No PrCs or anything to support it.

I guess a Binder 12/Knight of the Sacred Seal 5/Crusader 3 or something like that could be effective. If you time your ToB levels and pick your maneuvers very carefully.

[Person_Man]

Not that I'm aware of. Tome of Magic is nerfed.

What are your build goals and books allowed? Maybe we can help you get what you want without ToM?

[Fax Celestis]

There's some good truespeaker ones, but we all know about how truespeak works.

Rogue 2/Shadowcaster 3/Shadow Blade 5/Child of Shadow 10 is pretty decent, but gets power in the late-game.

Binder/Paladin/Occult Hunter/Witch Hunter is pretty decent. Binder/Cleric/Tenebrous Apostate is...meh.

That's all I can really think up off the top of my head.

[RagnaroksChosen]

I think any book is allowed, the condition is just that base classes are from TOM/TOB and we where talking about gishes.

My idea was shadowcaster with one of the TOB classes that have the shadow hand disipline figured it would meld well..
not sure about PRC's the GM's/ Games we play tend to be PRC light or it takes alot to Gain PRC's


But again this is about optimisation with the fact that you can only used base classes in tob/tom.

Edit: Person_man its not that TOM is nerfed i just understand it as being week/underpowered... cept the binder.

[Fax Celestis]

Well, Shadowcaster/Swordsage/Jade Phoenix Mage could be decent, but it doesn't technically qualify. You could also ask your DM about adding maneuver progression to the Shadow Blade PrC.

[Person_Man]

OK, slightly off topic, but here's a great ToM/ToB tank idea:

Glutt the Punished

Binder 3/Crusader 4/Hellreaver 2+

Dahlver-Nar vestige: Share 50% damage with any one target (Will Save negates if unwilling). ToM

Crusader 4: Steely Resolve 10 (delay damage by 1 round). ToB

Martial Spirit Stance: Heal 2 hit points to you or an ally whenever you hit enemy.

Hellreaver 2: Heal 10 points per round to any good ally (including yourself) as a Swift Action. Increases up to 30 points if you want to go up to Hellreaver 8. Fiendish Codex II

Stone Power feat: Decrease To-Hit to gain temporary hit points (up to 10 per round). ToB

Combat Vitality + Combat Stability + Combat Focus: Fast Healing 4, +8 to resist Bull Rush/Trip/Disarm/etc, +4 Will Save. PHBII

Spell Storing weapon enhancement: Can store a Vampiric Touch spell. SRD

Bloodstone weapon enhancement: Stores and casts Vampiric Touch just like a spell storing weapon, except that it's automatically empowered. MIC

Vampiric weapon enhancement: +1d6 extra damage whenever you hit a living creature, and you're healed by the same amount. (So around 1d6 to 4d6 per turn, depending on how many attacks you can get to hit). MIC

Put that together with some respectable DR (Mineral Warrior, other vestiges, Pact Augmentation, adamantine armor, etc), and the only real threat you have to face is Save or Die (or similar) spells. I'd say that your best strategy would actually be to have a friend Summon something with a ton of hit points, have it willingly share damage with you, and have it hang back to absorb your damage while you go to town on your enemies.

[Ramza00]

Cloistered Cleric 3/Binder 1/Anima Mage 10/Tenebrous Apostate 5/Contemplative 1 (not in that order)

18 levels of Divine Spellcasting
17 levels of Binding vestige (1+10+4+2)
Flavor wise you can easily make yourself a shadow theme.
And with a simple vestige metamagic you got persistent spells.

[Arcane_Snowman]

Cloistered Cleric 3/Binder 1/Anima Mage 10/Tenebrous Apostate 5/Contemplative 1 (not in that order)

18 levels of Divine Spellcasting
17 levels of Binding vestige (1+10+4+2)
Flavor wise you can easily make yourself a shadow theme.
And with a simple vestige metamagic you got persistent spells.

And where are you getting the 2nd level arcane spells?

Person_Man has an interesting idea, healbot-esque, but not bad.

[woodenbandman]

I think a good alternative to the swordsage, ala the Arcane Swordsage, would be the Mysterious Swordsage. Uses mysteries as maneuvers. THAT would be fun!

[RTGoodman]

I think a good alternative to the swordsage, ala the Arcane Swordsage, would be the Mysterious Swordsage. Uses mysteries as maneuvers. THAT would be fun!

You know, someone did a "fix" of the shadowcaster a while back that changed the mysteries to be per-encounter instead of whatever else they are. I don't know who it was (Fax, maybe?), and I don't know if there was ever a real write-up of it, but it seems reasonable. That could make a Shadow Mystery Swordsage build pretty easy to figure out.

I also think there was a build mentioned at some point recently that used Truenamer in a gish-type build, but I'll have to go look for it first.

[Fax Celestis]

You know, someone did a "fix" of the shadowcaster a while back that changed the mysteries to be per-encounter instead of whatever else they are. I don't know who it was (Fax, maybe?), and I don't know if there was ever a real write-up of it, but it seems reasonable. That could make a Shadow Mystery Swordsage build pretty easy to figure out.

I also think there was a build mentioned at some point recently that used Truenamer in a gish-type build, but I'll have to go look for it first.

Guilty as charged. Essentially, a full round action restores a tier of mysteries (that is, apprentice, initiate, or master).

[RTGoodman]

Guilty as charged. Essentially, a full round action restores a tier of mysteries (that is, apprentice, initiate, or master).

Yeah, that sounds pretty good. If you did a Shadow Mystery Swordsage, though, you could just give the swordsage access to any Shadow Hand maneuvers (and/or those from any homebrewed disciplines that might fit) or Shadowcaster Mysteries, but with some sort of requirement of lower-level mysteries to get the higher-level ones. (I think there's something like that in place anyway, but I'm not that familiar with shadowcasting.)


Regarding a ToM gish, I think you could probably do a pretty good one with a Str/Int-heavy Truenamer/Warblade. You've got Int synergy, and with Truename Training your primary skill is a permanent class skill for you. You probably need about 7-11 levels of Truenamer and then you'd end up with +17 to +18 BAB, good Fort/Will (and decent Reflex from your Warblade levels), AND decent skills (4+Int per level, and a good Int). The plan would be something like:

Truenamer 7/Warblade 13
BAB +18
Base Saves: Fort +10; Refl +6; Will +9

Feats: Truename Training, anything else you want. Extend Utterance is probably good, since the DC is on +5 (rather than the crazy +20 for Quicken or whatever). Otherwise, standard melee and truenamer feats apply.

Utterances Known
-Evolving Mind: greater speed of the zephyr (3rd); knight's puissance (1st); lesser word of nurturing (2nd); perceive the unseen (2nd); seek the sky (3rd); strike of might (2nd); universal aptitude (1st)
-Crafted Weapon: keen weapon (1st), analyze item (2nd)

Maneuvers/Stances Known: Basically any you want - depending on how you stagger your levels, I THINK you can still end up with a 9th-level maneuver, but I'm not sure.

Priority is something like Int, Str, Con, Dex, Wis, Cha. You could probably switch around Int and Str, but every little bit helps for Truenaming. (You'll probably be spending a lot on items, maybe even an item familiar.)

[Ramza00]

And where are you getting the 2nd level arcane spells?

Person_Man has an interesting idea, healbot-esque, but not bad.

Sorry I didn't explain this correctly. In the adaptation section of anima mage it says you can make it a divine or psionic prc as well as arcane.