Gish

[oxinabox]

I'm fiddling with a gish build idea.
I know it's been done, but i just want to write my thoughts downs somewhere as i work it out.

I want to use abjurant champion as it was intended, (Ie not as being the default class for elf wizards (since eventually they automaticlaly reach the prereqs (assuming combat casting feat))

So a character that is focused on buffing himself beyond anything else.
Player: "I cast my buffs"
DM: "Ok, then what do you do?"
Player: "hangon i'll need 15 minutes to finish these, what the rest of the party doing?"

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Race: Aeshkrau illumian

Aesh (“vigor”): +1 bonus on Strength checks and
Strength-based skill checks.
Krau (“magic”): +1 bonus to caster level for all spells
and spell-like abilities (up to a maximum value equal to
the illumian’s character level).
Aeshkrau: The illumian can use her Strength score to
determine the bonus spells she gains for a high ability score, instead of the normal ability score used by her
class to determine this feature. If she has more than
one spellcasting class, she may use her Strength score
in place of any or all of the ability scores used by those
classes for this purpose.

+2 racial bonus on saves against spells with the shadow
descriptor: The illumians’ magical heritage is tied to the
Plane of Shadow.
• Superior Literacy: Illumians are always literate, regard-
less of their character class. Speak Language is always a
class skill for illumians, regardless of class.


Abilities: STR high, lowish INT,
Because i'm dumping int, i need to avoid spells wich allow a save, but that's ok, cos i'm specialising on buffing.

Schools:
Specising in Abjuration.
A specialist wizard can prepare one additional spell of her specialty school per spell level each day. She also gains a +2 bonus on Spellcraft checks to learn the spells of her chosen school.

Now Enchantment has a couple of decent buffs:
Archon's Focus
Masochism
but not too many

Transmutation's Great

ban Illusion - it has some nice things like Bladeweave, and disguise self, but they allow Saves, wich will be too easy to overcome
Ban Evocation: I thats what my sword is for.

Is there away to ban 3 schools?
Necomancy is ok, i could animate some dead, but not great.
Conjuration is just too damn good, who can give up dimention door?

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I'll comeback to this with a list of Feats and Classes.
dip in fighter, spellsword.
maybe 3 wizard or so.
all of abjurant champion

should prabable power attack like a Boss after using true strike
Critical stike is nice:

[olentu]

Focused specialist can gain benefits for banning another school and another sacrifice.

[evil-frosty]

Illusion isnt that bad as it does have Mirror Image(gr version too) and Displacement. Which are both great for going into combat.

[Keld Denar]

I'd only specialize, but not focused specialize. Drop Enchantment (its buffs aren't really THAT good, and you won't have THAT much time for buffing) and probably Evocation. Evo is good if you can channel spells, but otherwise rather lackluster. Necro has Vamp Touch, which is FREAKING amazing when you have a +1 Spellstoring Bloodstone weapon. +3 equiv that holds 2 Vamp Touches, one of which is Empowered for FREE. Yea, thats action nova right there.

Have you decided on a build?

Fighter1/Wizard5/Spellsword1/AbjChamp5/EK8 is pretty standard, but rather boring. I like the streamlined nature of the Sorcadin
Pal2/Sorc4/Spellsword1/AbjChamp5/SacEx8, although you'd probably want to take the 1st level dip of SacEx ASAP to get Turn Undead which is great for powering Travel Devotion or Law Devotion and maybe Divine Might. Then again, an Aeshkrau wouldn't focus so much on Cha to get the synergy.

You could also use Suel Arcanamach to make a slightly more martially oriented Gish. Good lead in builds are things like:
Fighter2/Barbarian2/Duskblade2/
or Paladin4/Duskblade2
or Hexblade3/Barb1/Fighter2
or, if you are Martial Adeptly inclined:
Hexblade3/Warblade3
or Duskblade2/Barbarian1/Warblade3
or tons of other combinations.

Once you get to BAB6, take Suel1 then AbjChamp1-5. Go back and take Suel2-4 and round off with a level of Spellsword. After that, you can take 4 more levels of Spellsword which are full BAB and increase your CL, or you can actually take levels in Dragon Disciple, which will give you extra spells/day for your SA casting, something NO other class can give you.

Honestly, I'd go Aeshkrau Illumian Duskblade2/Fighter2/Barbarian2/Suel4/AbjChamp5/Spellsword1/DragonDisc4

Thats a really solid Suel build. Pick up Versatile Spellcasting and you can burn all of your level 1 Duskblade slots for level 2 Suel slots. Take Greater Mighty Wallop as one of your Suel spells and it'll last nearly all day and be undispellable and crank up your damage significantly. Then just nap PA and Lion Totem Barb and pounce the hell outa people with your ginormous beatstick.

[Doc Roc]

My take on the gish is slightly more exotic.

[oxinabox]

Hmm.

lets see:

Wizard 3/fighter 1/Warblade1/spellsword 1
And i can then Cast in Twilighted thistledown Mithral Fullplate

Fighter 1 nets me Power attack ASAP. and power attack scales with levels to get better and better.

Overall i loose 3/4 lvls of acane casting i i do this right.
and am 2 behind on BaB
(at lvl 21 say)
Could do Swordsage instead of Warblade,(downm 1 on BaB) but then i would need another lvl to get in to spellsword, (though this could be a lvl of wizard, it would still meet BaB reqs), and warblade has a sweet recovery, esp if i use some divination swift action the round before, critical strike would do nicely.

From there i now Easily Qualify for both Jade Phonix mage (good offense, p116 of ToB)
and Abjurant champion (good Defence)

Jade Pheonix Mage arcane Wrath is Nice. so's the Mystic Phonix Stance, But at this stage I'm a bit behind on Casting so i don't want to be hit with another lost caster lvl

I wonder how much of dimond mind use cancentration as attack i can get, any?

Emerald Immilation is kinda underpowered, usis 1d6 rounds to do 20d20 damage.
but in one round i could be doing 10d6+40, powerattacking (with quickened truestrike to more than counter my loss of BaB), and punishing stance and some stone mountain (if i can get that stone mountain i'm thinking of at that stage), and maybe an enchantement or two.
But then again it's kinda cool: "Screw this, I quit! my chraracter explodes,"
and it's save for half, and it's once a week.
So'll prable leave that off.

Now abjuarant champion: (Comp mage p 51)
Best stuff at lvl 1.
Wizard 3/fighter 1/Warblade1/spellsword 1/Abj Camp 1/Jade Phonix 2
And thats me build at lvl 9,
also woth it at lvl 8
but at lvl 9, i have some of the best features of all my classes, so it's increase in power should be slowing, Prabaility want to take the rest of Abj Champ before jade pheonix 6 just to delay the loss of spell casting level.
for this much magic the stances gain at that leval, compensate greatly i expect but not enough that i wouldn't want to put it off.
on the other hand it playing gets boring mors stances are nice.




For a Weabu fight'n mage is kinda lacking in Weabu, but has extra Mage. :-D


Totally going to play this when the DM i know runs his lvl 23 encounter.
IT involves Placing ~7 beholders on a pole.
I wanna play this character...


EDIT: wow, assuming i spend all all my 1st lvl slots (and maybe even some of my second) on critical stike, and spending round before i make an attack on Critcal stike, and true stike, then power attacking all my BaB
is shoud out damage most fighters, and most things on a requalr basis.
anjd when i Crit, almost anthing should need to save againsr massive damage.

[oxinabox]

My take on the gish is slightly more exotic.

So ... I hear the supermarkets are all complaining to the wholesalers, that all their trucks of cheese went missing