Gestalt Sorcerer // Favored Soul

[Holocron Coder]

I was creating a gestalt character for a campaign (which, sadly, I didn't get into), when I stumbled upon an interesting idea.

Being a gestalt campaign, I needed to choose two classes, obviously, to start with. The initial idea fluff was to create a "cleric of a dragon god", so to speak. Human cleric, not draconic cleric. I always enjoyed the fluff of the Favored Soul and like spontaneous casting more than plan-ahead casting.

So, so far I have Favored Soul on one side. With Cha as a primary attribute and a Dragon as the deity, this quickly lead to the Sorcerer as the other class. I love the idea of it.

Now, here is where I run across a problem. Favoured Soul grants a higher BAB, hit die, and all good saves. The problem is that it also gives armor proficiencies, as well as shield, but the arcane casting portion of the Sorcerer gains spell failure from this.

All of this is very obvious to anybody who's optimized a character or fifty. I know that there are many "ignore spellcast failure" options out there, but I lack good knowledge on them.

So, what would be a good build plan for a gestalt Favored Soul of Io // Sorcerer? I want to get as close to full casting as possible, but still run around in melee without getting creamed. Any dragon-esque feats/etc would be great. Bloodline allowed, 36 point-buy standard.

Any takers?

[Azerian Kelimon]

Easy, run a battlesorc.

[Fax Celestis]

The only benefit he'd get from BSorc, though, would be Armored Mage (Light).

I'd recommend instead using mithril (DMG, -10%), githcraft (DMG-II, -5%), twilight enhancement (PHB-II, BoED, -10%) on pretty much all of your gear. 25% reduction should cover pretty much everything that you can think of.

[Holocron Coder]

Suggestions sound good, Fax...

Any thoughts as to feats / attribute placement / skills?

Neither class gets many skills (2+int), and I was figuring human, making it (3+int), unless something else seems more appropriate.

[togapika]

Armored Mage Light from Battlesorceror allows you to take the feat that allows you to ignore arcan spell failure from medium armor.

[Azerian Kelimon]

And then, get mithril full plate, and bam, best armor AND spellcasting.

[Fax Celestis]

And then, get mithril full plate, and bam, best armor AND spellcasting.

Except that you've got one less spell known and spell castable per level, which is a huge trade, and not worth it by itself. Armored Mage (Light) + an upgrade to d8 hd + upgrade in BAB + light armor proficiency + martial weapon proficiency (one) + weapon focus is about equal to that, and Favored Soul knocks most of those out of the running, rendering BSorc a very bad choice.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Not really. You STILL will dominate more or less anything that is thrown at you, sans a full caster. But a thought has occurred to me: Warmage. This way, you can get your blasty spells, and get the support spells too. And, you can say you are a warrior cleric.

[Fax Celestis]

...except the Warmage is worse than the BSorc, and is also worse than the Warlock. You may be a full caster, yes, but you're a full caster with very few spells.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Who can hold his own and more in more or less any battlefield situation. Granted, it's not an Conjurer/Illusionist base class, but the ability to inflict decent damage from afar, then wade into melee and go 'a pummelin' is attractive. And it doesn't annihilate the fun of the game when you say "I cast timestop, forcecage, and delayed maw of chaos and cloudkill". It's better when you say "I timestop, the prep a forcecage, and so, when the timestop wears off, I cast a defenestrating sphere". It's seriously really effective (not programmed amnesia, but still), and seeing the enemy bounce a few inches up and down helplessly and take tons of damage is hilarious.

[Tor the Fallen]

Who can hold his own and more in more or less any battlefield situation. Granted, it's not an Conjurer/Illusionist base class, but the ability to inflict decent damage from afar, then wade into melee and go 'a pummelin' is attractive. And it doesn't annihilate the fun of the game when you say "I cast timestop, forcecage, and delayed maw of chaos and cloudkill". It's better when you say "I timestop, the prep a forcecage, and so, when the timestop wears off, I cast a defenestrating sphere". It's seriously really effective (not programmed amnesia, but still), and seeing the enemy bounce a few inches up and down helplessly and take tons of damage is hilarious.

But you can do the same thing with sorc/fav soul AND MORE.

[Fax Celestis]

But you can do the same thing with sorc/fav soul AND MORE.

Which is entirely my point. There are better ways than BSorc to get Armored Mage (Light).

[Azerian Kelimon]

Eliminate the long range control out of the equation (Mostly. A sorc certainly lacks a few options the warmage has, even if he DOES have a few of his own.), and yeah, you can do it.

[Tor the Fallen]

Eliminate the long range control out of the equation (Mostly. A sorc certainly lacks a few options the warmage has, even if he DOES have a few of his own.), and yeah, you can do it.

What are you talking about.

[Holocron Coder]

Do remember this is a gestalt character. Thus, dual progression.

With Favored Soul // Sorcerer, we have: d8 HD, 3/4 BAB, full casting divine, full casting arcane, limited but spontaneous lists, shield proficiency, med armory proficiency, proficiency / focus with 1 martial weapon (scimitar).

The problem is I don't know how to distribute 36 points well enough, what to buy with the WBL, and what skills / feats to focus on. PrCs that keep with the "draconic cleric" feel and keep the full casting/BAB would be awesome :) Any suggestions towards this rather than Warmage vs All?

[Tor the Fallen]

You'll probably want to take the PHB2 variant that lets you cast metamagic spells. With all those slots, it'd be good if you quicken some of your buffs, empower those debuffs.

Put you skill points in concentration (max), spellcraft (max), and then split the rest between know: relig & arcana. That's how'd I go, anyway.

[Azerian Kelimon]

Disciple of the dragon, DMG? It'll gimp you, 'course, but it's the dragoniest thing out there. After getting that out of my body, I'm sure draconomicon has sumthin' to say here.

And yes, warmage has a few spells that are exclusive to him which I can't remember for the love of my life. And don't compare it with a wiz who's going batman (just to be sure. Caution is good.), but a sorc who goes blastlike. The idea is to have fun with the game, not to irritate your teammates after the next 50 encounters are resolved by a single spell.

Note: I see no problem with deciding a few encounters with a signle spell. Just not the tremendous majority.

[The_Snark]

The warmage has no spells that are not on the sorcerer/wizard list. Probably not a good choice; I've played one before, and they really aren't very good.

As for feats? I'd go for draconic heritage feats, from Complete Arcane and Races of the Dragon. Draconic Heritage and Dragon Wings at 1st level are fun. The Dragonheart Mage will give you a breath weapon and bonus draconic feats, at the cost of a couple lost caster levels. Some of those draconic feats could be useful in melee.

[Fax Celestis]

Do remember this is a gestalt character. Thus, dual progression.

With Favored Soul // Sorcerer, we have: d8 HD, 3/4 BAB, full casting divine, full casting arcane, limited but spontaneous lists, shield proficiency, med armory proficiency, proficiency / focus with 1 martial weapon (scimitar).

The problem is I don't know how to distribute 36 points well enough, what to buy with the WBL, and what skills / feats to focus on. PrCs that keep with the "draconic cleric" feel and keep the full casting/BAB would be awesome :) Any suggestions towards this rather than Warmage vs All?

Well, there's the gear I suggested earlier. I would recommend trading your familiar for the PHB-II Metamagic Specialist variant, and you might also want to consider the Deity's Favor variant for the Favored Soul from there as well.

Unfortunately, you do not qualify for [Divine] feats, since you don't have the Turn Undead ability. A level in Sacred Exorcist (on either side of your progression), however, would regain you that feature.

If you're on 36 point buy, I'd say a 14 Con, 14 Str, and 16 Cha, and place your other stats as desired.

There are a bunch of spells in the Spell Compendium and in Dragon Magic that are at +1 caster level if you're a Sorceror or are of the Dragonblood subtype. Further, there are a bunch of different feats from Dragon Magic that, while they rely on the Dragonblooded subtype (which you can get from a feat or a race), will allow you to gain the heritage of a specific breed of dragon and reap some of their benefits.

You may want to check into the Dragonpacts bit in that book as well. From what you're telling me, it sounds like Dragon Magic is the book you're looking for here.

[Swooper]

Well, you could run a gish build on the sorcerer-side of the gestalt. As in, Sorcerer x/Spellsword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight z (or Knight Phantom, if you can use the Five Nations Eberron supplement. Knight Phantom is free in the web preview thingy for that book on the WotC site.) It'll give you about 17-18 BAB, 9th level spells, CL equal to your BAB, AC up the wazoo and several neat tricks. AND then you have Favoured Soul on the other side of the gestalt.

[leperkhaun]

Go Sorc/Soul

As another poster said get twilight, mithril and all of that for armor.

try for a grish build on the sorc side. Id do some research for that, try the wizards CO boards. Alot of grish builds can get 16/17 BAB and 9th level spells if done right.

[Kurald Galain]

I'd say go Soul / Warlock, then pick cool abilities to match. And yes, warlocks come with armor.

You can even re-fluff your warlock so that your Eldritch Blast comes from your mouth. Instant breath weapon!

[Fizban]

The only benefit he'd get from BSorc, though, would be Armored Mage (Light).

I'd recommend instead using mithril (DMG, -10%), githcraft (DMG-II, -5%), twilight enhancement (PHB-II, BoED, -10%) on pretty much all of your gear. 25% reduction should cover pretty much everything that you can think of.

You forgot thistledown padding. An extra 5% off chain shirt or heavier.

[Yeygresh]

Take a level of Fighter, and then a level of Spellsword. Get a Twilight Mithral Fullplate. -10%, -10%, -10%, and you get 5% failure Fullplate. You also get Heavy Armor, Martial Weapons, an extra warrior feat, and a d10 HD for the price of one caster level(Divine or Arcane, your choice).

Now, that's just the simplest way to go; I'm sure the knowledgeable optimizers can better than that.

Edit: Add Feycraft(DMG2), as noted by others, to the armor for 0% Arcane Failure.

[Kurald Galain]

I don't think you need to go through so many lengths to get full plate with zero SPF - you can easily wear some light armor and cover the difference with long-lasting buff spells. Or by not going into melee all that often. Or by invis.

[Fax Celestis]

Or by mage armor and shield, for +8 AC, no ASF, immunity to magic missile, and apply those bonuses to incorporeal attacks as well.

[Dode]

Seconding the "just use mage armor and shield" camp.

You're a spontaneous caster with double the amount of spells to spare. Those spells should be no skin off your back.
And it's not like you need to be running around in combat in the first place.
All the feats and alternative class features would be much better spent imo on abilities that increase your offensive, not defensive power.

[Thrawn183]

Well, if its core only, have you thought of dragon disciple? It'll set back your arcane casting a lot, but really help out your melee and if you've got full divine casting then you only have so many actions to spend in a round anyway!

One of my favorite divine spells would have to be Moon Bolt from Spell Compendium. Its strength damage is great for lethal and nonlethal encounters.

[leperkhaun]

ehhh, enchanted armor give much more AC than mage armor and you can still use the shield spell against attacks you are more likely to face. If you are worried about incorpreal attacks, the ghost touch ability makes your armor count against those.

[Dode]

ehhh, enchanted armor give much more AC than mage armor and you can still use the shield spell against attacks you are more likely to face. If you are worried about incorpreal attacks, the ghost touch ability makes your armor count against those.

True, but it doesn't change the fact that tanking with a dual-caster gestalt with only medium armor proficiency and no inherent bypassing of ASF is not going to result in a very optimal result. Exchanging spellcasting potency and a feat (Complete Mage Stalwart Sorcerer alternate cast feature and corresponding Battle Caster from Complete Arcane) It's just not very economical from an action standpoint, especially from a dual-spontaneous spellcaster point-of-view.

A Favoured Soul/Sorcerer Tank may be able to do three different things, but it can only do one thing at a time. This is why official gishes like the Duskblade are built around the idea that they can cast and fight at the same time. And even then, they're considered merely "alright".