[3.5e] Jade Phoenix Advice/Optimization

[MrWacko]

I'm finally playing one of my favorite PrC's, the Jade Phoenix, in a campaign a friend of mine is running. So many interesting abilities and wonderful combat toys, but I'm debating what to do with the few class levels I have planned that aren't intended to be Jade Phoenix.

First off, useful campaign specific rules. The skills Spot and Listen have been condensed into the skill Perception (wis). The skills Hide and Move Silently have also been condensed into the skill Stealth (dex). Triple starting wealth was used for calculating gold, and feats are granted every odd level (1st, 3rd, 5th, etc.), instead of the standard progression. All Psionics banned, but otherwise all 3.5 published books are fair game. Warblades have been nerfed to a d10 hit die, but otherwise remain unchanged. 3.x/ old material allowable on DM permission. The campaign world draws many elements from Ebberon, but isn't Ebberon, so anything goes, campaign wise.

Now, the campaign has already started, so I can't change the classes. Feat retraining is allowed, so I can swap out some feats (like say Heavy AP) for other feats required by other prestige classes. My current (lv 7) build is Wizard 5/Warblade 1/Jade Phoenix 1, and my 20 level build is Wizard 5/Warblade 1/ Jade Phoenix 10/ Spellsword 4. The levels I'm debating are Spellsword. I need something (and soon), that lets me improve my AC significantly, and magic/supernatural buffs are too unreliable given the campaign world (AMG/F's out the wazoo.). Spellsword does this, but Puts my 20th level caster level at 15th, just a few levels shy of the almighty 9th level spells.

So, my quandary is this: I'm hoping for 4 levels of max caster level (for 9th level spells), some ability that significantly boosts my AC or defensive capabilities (excluding HP. I have more HP than a Dwarf Barbarian on steroids, courtesy of Faere Mysteries Initiate), and max BAB. Priority is as listed, with defense and caster level coming in at a tie for most important. A useful offensive ability would be nice as well, but that's dead last in priority.

Iron Heart Surge is not the answer to any of these problems, either. My DM, while allowing me to Iron Heart Surge away anti-magic, is interpreting this in a generally unfavorable manner. Trust me, in most cases it will not help me, defensively.

Now, the stat block:

Areniel Maludrim
Male Grey Elf Wizard 5/Warblade 1/Jade Phoenix Mage 1
NG Medium Humaniod
Init +2; Perception +8
Languages: Common, Elven, Draconic, Gnome, Goblin, Orc, Sylvan
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AC 14, Touch 13, Flat-Footed 12 (+1 Deflection, +1 Natural Armor, +2 Dex)
Hp 67 (7 HD)
Fort +5; Ref +15; Will +5
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Speed 40 ft.
Melee +5 (+1 Longsword, 1d8)
Melee +4 (Shortsword, 1d6)
Base Atk: +4; Grp: +4
Atk Options: Arcane Wrath, Arcane Strike
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Maneuvers and Stances Known (IL 4th):
Stances - Hunter's Sense (1st)
Strikes - Disarming Strike* (2nd), Emerald Razor* (2nd)
Boosts - Wind Stride (1st)
Counters - Moment of Perfect Mind* (1st)
* Readied Maneuver

Wizard Spells Prepared (CL 5th):
3rd - Dispel Magic, Fireball (DC 20), Favorable Wind
2nd - Blur, Insight of Good Fortune, Whirling Blade x2 (Melee+Int All)
1st - True Strike x2, Shield, Mage Armor, Sleep, Jump, Charm Person
0 - Message, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, Detect Magic
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Abilities: Str 11, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 24, Wis 12, Cha 10
SQ: Elf Traits, Generalist Wizardry Battle Clarity, Weapon Aptitude, Rite of Walking
Feats: Faerie Mysteries Initiate (Passions) (Dragon #319 p58), Insightful Reflexes (CA p110), Scribe Scroll, Zero G Fighting, Quick Draw, Quicken Spell, Heavy Armor Proficiency, Arcane Strike (CW p96)
Flaws: Shaky, Frail
Traits: Quick
Skills: Concentration +10, Decipher Script +15, Diplomacy +7, Jump +7, K/ Arcane +17, K/ History +11, K/ Religion +11, Martial Lore +15, Perception +8, P/ Sailor +6, Search +12, Tumble +9, Sense Motive +6, Spellcraft +17
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Possessions: 6500 gp, +2 Mithral Chain Shirt (Not donned), +1 Long`sword w/ Wand Chamber, Shortsword with Wand Chamber, Ring of Feather Falling, Wand of Magic Missile (9th level), Wand of Foxes Cunning, Headband of Intellect +2, Ring of Protection +1, Spellbook, Spell Component Pouch, 5 Cure Light Wounds Potions.

Spellbook: Spells Prepared plus 0 - all; 1st - Identify, Mage Armor, Shield, Charm Person, Magic Missile, Nysturls Magic Aura, Feather Fall, Alarm, Grease, Animate Rope, Sleep ; 2nd - Fox's Cunning, Fog Cloud, Detect Thoughts; 3rd - Haste, Fly, Displacement

Notes: Base Int 22, using Elven generalist wizardry substitution levels. The feat Zero G Fighting is exactly what it sounds like. The feat is required for me to not royally suck in 50% of the encounters in the campaign. The rest is fair game.

I haven't planned out all of my future feats, so anything goes. Two feats are set in stone, though. Adaptive Style, and Martial Style - Iron Heart Surge (ToB p28, and ToB p31, respectively) are both 100% guaranteed in the near future.

This is a generally high powered campaign. The DM, while discouraging anything leading down the pun-pun and infinite loops path of cheese, has been generally encouraging us to bring as much to bear as possible. Given that we've already narrowly avoided a full fledged encounter with a pit fiend at level 7, I'll take his word.

Side note: Upon examining my character, he chews through swift actions like candy, so any suggestions on how to boost available swift actions would also be useful.

[Douglas]

Crack open Complete Mage and take a look at the Abjurant Champion. It's practically custom made for exactly what you want. Edit: Except that the AC improvement is an increase in power of the buffs you just said won't work due to antimagic. Well, pretty much nothing but actual armor will help your AC in an antimagic field. You could add the Twilight ability (found in BoED, PHB2, and MIC) to your mithral chain shirt so you can wear it all the time with no spell failure and have at least that much ready automatically when the AMF comes along. Mithral + Twilight + Thistledown Padding (Races of the Wild) + Spellsword 1 adds up to the full 35% spell failure reduction for negating full plate's penalty and doesn't lose any caster levels. The twilight ability will disappear in any antimagic field, but you won't be able to cast then anyway so it doesn't matter.

As for swift actions, you're pretty much just out of luck there. Ruby Knight Vindicator from ToB lets you spend turn attempts to get extra swift actions, but that ability doesn't come until level 7 and that's not counting the levels required to meet the prerequisites for the class. Aside from that, the only way I know of to gain extra swift actions before epic and the Multispell feat is to Shapechange into a Chronotyrin (not sure about spelling) or something with a similar ability to get multiple complete rounds worth of actions in one round, and that's pretty extreme cheese.

[sebsmith]

You can perform one swift action per turn without affecting your ability to perform other actions.

Given this line, there should be a way to trade other actions for more swift actions, but it doesn't appear in the SRD. Ask your dm what exchange rate he might allow. If, for example, you can get a trade like a move action for another swift action, then you can get more move actions (as an extraordinary ability) from a 4th level Marshall cohort, which is what your leadership score would get you given your cohort and charisma assuming you can qualify as having a special power or fair and generous.

[golentan]

Too bad you didn't go swordsage. You might have been able to get your DM to rule that Kung Fu genius could replace the swordsage WIS to AC, given it doesn't stack with monk. I don't think I'd allow that, but maybe your DM is nicer than me?

Also, stack on some non-magical enhancement. If you can keep your to-hit high enough, keep wall of blades in one of your maneuvers readied slots. You can wait to see if you would be hit before choosing to block, which means they'll have already committed to things like power attack for the opposed roll.

Also, with triple starting gold you can buy a belt of battle. If you use it to gain swift actions, it's very efficient.

[Douglas]

Regardless of any logical reasoning it is not possible to exchange move or standard actions for swift actions, and this inability is important to game balance. Quite a number of things are balanced on the assumption that only one swift action is available per round, with Quickened spells just being the most obvious. If you allow spending a move action to gain a swift action, you allow wizards to cast 3 spells per round instead of 2 just by not moving more than 5'. Ruby Knight Vindicator is the only way to gain additional swift actions I know of short of Shapechanging into certain broken monsters, and that is the primary reason that class is generally considered overpowered and cheesy despite the ability being at the PrC's 7th level, way too far in for a dip.

Edit:

Also, with triple starting gold you can buy a belt of battle. If you use it to gain swift actions, it's very efficient.

Belt of Battle costs swift actions, it doesn't give you them. It turns your swift action into move, standard, or full round actions (very few times per day).

[Eldariel]

Regardless of any logical reasoning it is not possible to exchange move or standard actions for swift actions, and this inability is important to game balance. Quite a number of things are balanced on the assumption that only one swift action is available per round, with Quickened spells just being the most obvious. If you allow spending a move action to gain a swift action, you allow wizards to cast 3 spells per round instead of 2 just by not moving more than 5'. Ruby Knight Vindicator is the only way to gain additional swift actions I know of short of Shapechanging into certain broken monsters, and that is the primary reason that class is generally considered overpowered and cheesy despite the ability being at the PrC's 7th level, way too far in for a dip.

Allowing conversion of a Standard Action to a Swift Action breaks nothing. Move Action is the one that causes problems since it isn't designed to do anything proactive.

[MrWacko]

Too bad you didn't go swordsage. You might have been able to get your DM to rule that Kung Fu genius could replace the swordsage WIS to AC, given it doesn't stack with monk. I don't think I'd allow that, but maybe your DM is nicer than me?

I'll make sure to ask my DM, (*cough* you *cough*) should I ever change into it somehow.

Also, stack on some non-magical enhancement. If you can keep your to-hit high enough, keep wall of blades in one of your maneuvers readied slots. You can wait to see if you would be hit before choosing to block, which means they'll have already committed to things like power attack for the opposed roll.

Also, with triple starting gold you can buy a belt of battle. If you use it to gain swift actions, it's very efficient.

Probably worth it, but regardless, I'd rather find something more permanent. I'd rather not chew through prepared maneuvers, even if I'm taking adaptive style. As for the belt of battle, not worth it for reasons already mentioned.

douglas: AMG/F's render Abjurant Champion abilities rather useless, even with the full BAB and max spellcasting. Oh, its times like these when I wish the level cap on the bladesinger AC ability wasn't around.

My current plan involves taking the first level of Spellsword, then swapping out the remaining 3 levels for something else, probably Abjurant Champion, because there's nothing else out there w/ max BAB and max spellcasting, and the buff boosts will still come in handy, when I'm not drowning in an AMF. I suppose I could browse the PrC's in search of the classes that boost spellcasting 1st level, have max BAB, and hopefully something else useful.

For everyone talking about converting actions into other types of actions: Can we please not change this topic into an argument about it? RAW you can't do it without special items, so leave it at that.

[Talic]

You've kinda backed us into a corner. On one hand, you have a magic-themed character.

On the other, you want non-magic defenses. That doesn't work well.

My recommendation? Don't worry about it. Archmage 4.

Use your party members as they are intended. Let those that are built to take hits, take hits. In AMF's, your proposed build is basically a 12 year old girl, so rather than try to 1 man your weaknesses... Play to your considerable strength.

Be a mage. A real mage, not an armor-monkey, or whatnot.

If you really need a bit of armor, there's a class variant of fighter in complete Mage that allows you to wear light armor when casting low-level spells... With that and metamagic to put low level spells in higher level slots, it's ok, but not great.

Better would be twilight mithril feycraft chain shirt. The enchantments won't work in an AMF, true... But you're not gonna be casting in one either. And outside of an AMF, you'll have a 0% arcane spell failure chance.

[Douglas]

douglas: AMG/F's render Abjurant Champion abilities rather useless, even with the full BAB and max spellcasting. Oh, its times like these when I wish the level cap on the bladesinger AC ability wasn't around.

Which is why I recommended the mithral twilight full plate with thistledown suit and Spellsword 1 in my edit. Full plate with no spell failure and max dex +3.

If you were willing to accept the lost caster levels and maneuver progression and the 6 level wait for the critical class feature, I'd recommend Swiftblade. Once you hit level 6 in that class, Haste works in an antimagic field, and so do every last one of the other class features that improve Haste. How's 50% miss chance for a strong defense?

[Eldariel]

Gith/Feycraft Twilight Mithril Full-Plate is 10%, exactly as much as Spellsword negates. Get yourself one of those. Never leave home without 'em. Of course, if you're AMFd, your AC will be inexistent anyways regardless of what kinds of fancy robes you wear, but if it makes you feel better to have armor, that's your best bet.

[Lycanthromancer]

Why the ban on psionics? It's balanced with ToB, and far less broken than Vancian casting.

Is it just that you guys aren't familiar with it? Because it's basically just like magic, but easier to use (and as I said; less broken).

Flavor obviously isn't an issue, because it can be flavored however you want, and easily.

If it wasn't banned, I'd have a few suggestions.

[golentan]

Why the ban on psionics? It's balanced with ToB, and far less broken than Vancian casting.

Is it just that you guys aren't familiar with it? Because it's basically just like magic, but easier to use (and as I said; less broken).

Flavor obviously isn't an issue, because it can be flavored however you want, and easily.

If it wasn't banned, I'd have a few suggestions.

Banned for plot reasons. They play a crucial role, and could be really destructive to that plot point in the hands of players.

[Zhalath]

[QUOTE=douglas;6075612]with Quickened spells just being the most obvious. If you allow spending a move action to gain a swift action, you allow wizards to cast 3 spells per round instead of 2 just by not moving more than 5'. /QUOTE]

I thought it says that you can never cast more than 1 spell per round. I can't find the exact quote, but I can find this, from the System Resource Document:

You may cast only one quickened spell per round.

So, you can't use quickened spells more than once per turn.

[Sinfire Titan]

Your build should be Wizard 6/Warblade 1/Jade Phoenix Mage 8/Abjurant Champion 5



The Capstone of JPM isn't exactly good, due to the limited uses/low damage output. You're better off not gunning for that ability, and spreading out your maneuvers (a lot of counters is a good idea).

Wizard 6 is for the extra point of BAB and saves. Stopping at 5 is usually a bad idea for a Gish build. Focused Specialist (Transmutation or Abjuration) is a wonderful way to boost your stats into obscenity, though most optimizers prefer good old Conjuration. Focused Specialist is a very good option for a Gish build, as you will be lacking spells constantly.

[Siosilvar]

I thought it says that you can never cast more than 1 spell per round. I can't find the exact quote, but I can find this, from the System Resource Document:

So, you can't use quickened spells more than once per turn.

That's probably a holdover from when Quicken was simply a free action, but that does stop some abuse.

However, I do like the idea of move action spells...