best gish build

[Feldar]

What is the best gish build in your opinion?

What things can make a gish work well? Which feats and prestige classes?

[lylsyly]

Check out the Gish Handbook for starters!

[Kurald Galain]

Magus/20.

Because... you can full-attack and cast a spell in the same round, straight from level one. Action economy wins combats.

[liquidformat]

Magus/20.

Because... you can full-attack and cast a spell in the same round, straight from level one. Action economy wins combats.

Nah Druid 20 enough said...

[ExLibrisMortis]

Wizard 5/incantatrix 3, Extend, Persist, Item Familiar. Fill out however you want, just don't lose any casting. Unless you're starting at ECL 20. In that case, Swiftblade 9 is nice. But Swiftblade goes nicely with Spelldancer, which is a better form of Persistomancy, and would replace Incantatrix. So yeah.

It's probably worth picking up divine power and giant size with Arcane Disciple (Hero).

You can use a lot of Cooperative Metamagic with body outside body. Either pick it up on a staff, or with a slightly liberal reading of Boccob's Reading Room.

With body outside body, you can Persist everything with Cooperative Metamagic, allowing you to share all Persistent buffs with any familiar you might have. That would make Obtain Familiar + Enspell Familiar a good pick. If you're relying on Metamagic Effect more, you'll need additional uses to cover your familiar's buffs (unless the DM rules there's one spell affecting two targets, but that's kinda weird with Personal spells), which probably isn't worth it.

[Anthrowhale]

It's probably important to distinguish persistomancer gishes from others because persistomancy is really on another level. Another example in the persistomancy vein is Archivist 5/Spelldancer 1, Arcane Disciple Cleric 5/Spelldancer 1, or just Cleric 20.

For non-persistomancer gishes the guide above misses out on:
a) Trickster Spellthief which is something like a bard minus music plus access to transmutation sorcerer/wizard spells (and others).
b) Sha'ir which is something like a wizard except with access to divine-advancing spell classes. This opens up some interesting possibilities around Ruby Knight Vindicator + Arcane Spellsurge for example. Edit: or Ordained Champion, which has a particularly good Channel Spell.

[Gruftzwerg]

seems like the warlock options are left for me again *grin-evil*
(optimized build links in my signature)

1. Clawlock (Claw of Malar)
Clawlocks are fun is you like predator or Super Sayajin themed arcane gishes. They make excellent uberchargers. You can double dip monk's unarmed strike (and count as monk20). Further 2 lvls into Drunken Master increases your mobility while charging to the max (change direction while charging as much you want and bypass all AoO for a single tumble 15DC roll). Can stack several layers of perception and deception (magic). Has excellent action economy for a gish since most of your buff spells count for 24h. You don't need to waste rounds to buff up at the start of a fight. Combined with a super high movementspeed you can dive/charge up to 600ft, bypass all lowlife enemies and just go straight to the root of the problem: the BBEG, caster, leader or whatsoever.

2. Glaivelock (Hellfire Escalation - Killer Kobold)
Glaivelocks can become similar to clawlocks very strong gish builds. They can achieve a high attack-rate/turn. At lvl 16 they can have up to 10 attacks/turn and once they hit epic, this skyrockets up to 20 attacks/turn (all high likely to hit due to being touch attacks!). The glaivelock can maintain very high defenses compared to the clawlock, since we can pump AC instead of dumping it (in addition to the other defenses available to both builds). It also has high enough dmg to one-shot with every single attack.

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Bonus round: Druid double ubercharger gish (Papa Smurf)
Papa Smurf is an optimized double ubercharger build. Together with a fleshraker mount this is an unstoppable duo that fits in any space a medium character would fit. A more regular gish build compared to my warlock entries. Papa has access to an arsenal of buff spell which he can share with his fleshraker for double cheese. Can achieve very high AC, even while charging since he can have a geared AC of over 60.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Human, Human Paragon 1/ Fighter 1/ Wizard 2/ Human Paragon 2/ Spellsword 1/ Incantatrix 4/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Eldritch Knight 4, with Item Familiar for Spellcraft optimization.
You've got Metamagic Effect for persistent buffs, with 9th level spells and a +16 BAB at 20th level.

Illumian (Naenhoon), Paladin 2/ Sorcerer 4/ Spellsword 1/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Sacred Exorcist 8, with Ancestral Relic for a custom Runestaff.
You can persist two of your buffs with turning attempts each day, the runestaff mostly negates your limited number of spells known, and you've got 9th level spells and a +16 BAB at 20th level.

[Ramza00]

Nah Druid 20 enough said...

I am going to be a pain and honestly advocate for Arcane Hierophant.

Druid X/Wizard 1/Arcane Hierophant 10 with an early entry trick (such as Improved Sigil Krau / Illuminan.)

It is an arcane gish, it is a wildshaper, with a fanged ring and a monk's belt you are a "monk with unarmed strikes" who uses your natural weapons as secondary attacks in addition to your unarmed strikes.

With a wand of bloodwind (1st level, so 15gp charge), or extended blood wind (2nd level, so 90 gp) and now your attacks are "ranged" if you want them to be at the expense of your swift action. And with greater mighty wallop your 1d3 (1d4 with INA the fang ring gives), you gain 5 size increases and thus are similar in damage to a monk without being as insane as Greater Mighty Wallop can be (which many DMs will not allow.) (1d4 to 1d6, 1d6 to 1d8, 1d8 to 2d6, 2d6 to 3d6, 3d6 to 4d6.)

Wraithstrike (2nd level, so 90 gp) is another good swift action buff.

-----

Druid is good.
Wizard is good.

Early entry Arcane Hierophant is a great gish that is more or less the best of both (though weaker wizard compared to pure wizard but you have your druid stuff to trade off with.)

[Melcar]

What is the best gish build in your opinion?

What things can make a gish work well? Which feats and prestige classes?

4 levels of figther(look at the variants from DR), 5 levels of Wizard(possible specialist/act), 5 levels of Abjurant Champion, 6 levels of Swiftblade!

Now go win D&D!

Your weapon should be a Dwarvencrafted, Razor-Sharp, Oerthblooded, Pureore, Obdurium scimitar. Now just place whatever enchantments you like... I suggest Collision, and Keen!

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I am going to be a pain and honestly advocate for Arcane Hierophant.

Any Elf, preferably one without a Con penalty, Druid 8/ Suel Arcanamach 2/ Arcane Hierophant 10, and you don't need early entry shenanigans.

[bean illus]

* Seven levels of cleric is full bab, full caster, full armor, zero tax. Prc friendly, and fuels metamagic. Tons of class options and variants, including one of the only skill monkey gishes in the game (cloistered).

Clerics make great gish also because, they can heal themselves, or heal level/ability damage, or remove conditions (fatigue, etc).

* Ordained champion is underrated by some, because it drops 2 caster levels (and the fluff), but it really makes a a balanced gish. 9th level spells remain available, and every level directly boosts your melee. Many of the best versions of the best gish abilities in the game, among of which are:

• Bonus domain from portfolio
• 2 bonus feats in one level
• Smite without race/alignment restrictions
• Reward for Cha/TU investment
• Channel spell, all day, as a move, at 8th ecl, charged 8hrs!
  (are u really gish w/o channel?)
• Damage reduction per spell level sacrifice
• Xtra damage per spell level sacrifice
• Rapid metamagic
• Casting up to 3 spells per round
• Primary casting stat to melee damage

That's 10!+ classic gish upgrades in only 5! levels. With BAB 20, 9th spells, and CL 18. Though there are plenty of power builds out there, few do it cleaner than using SRD and one splat; one base class, one prc, and almost zero requisites.

I like to squeeze in extend spell, so GMW, and MV are always up, and i can sacrifice more slots. Of course, sacred exorcist and extra turning, if you can.

Oh, yeah Retributive Spell, which brings you up to potentially FOUR Spells Per Round, every first round of combat, and 2-3 any other round.

EDIT: i must mention knowledge devotion, which paired with GMW, Cha to smite, and BAB 20 = power attack. Very possible with cloistered.

Spoiler: Other Gish

Show

*Duskblade 13 gets full attack channel spell. Chameleon 7 cast 5th level everything, at CL 14. Full attack channel tree shape at level 15.
I don't know how many attacks/day this guy could potentially make, but the thought of turning dozens of baddies into trees in a few minutes reminds me of Helm's Deep.

Or chameleon 10 (which has divine power), with 10 levels of whatever you like. Illumian facto tripper, with aesh-krau? I like the wu jen giant size tripper, channeling at 100' r.

Or exoticist fighter 2, cloister 3, chameleon 10, ordained champion 3, arcane archer 2, for a crit fishing gish archer that channels 2 spells at a time through an elvencraft greatbow.

[Maat Mons]

Any restrictions of sources? If not, I'm going obscure with Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting. It's by Paizo, of course, but it's for 3.5 instead of their own Pathfinder system.

Anyway, it contains an ACF for Cleric (on page 43) called Holy Warrior. It gives the class full base attack bonus, d10 hit dice, and proficiency with your deity's favored weapon. Though you do lose both domains.

True, you could get similar effect from Persisted Divine Power. And not only would the DMM route allow you keep your domains, you'd be able to take a PrC without losing the benefits. But there's something to be said for simplicity.



Throw on the Militia regional feat from Player's Guide to Faerun (on page 41), and you've got proficiency with all martial weapons. Yeah, I'm mixing stuff from a Golarion sourcebook with stuff from a Faerunian sourcebook. What you never mix settings?



Would it be cheesy to combine Holy Warrior with Cloistered Cleric? Applying them in the most beneficial order, you gain the 6 + Int skill points of Cloistered Cleric, but with none of its drawbacks. You might also wind up with the Knowledge domain, depending on what it means to lose "both" your domains when you have three.

[bean illus]

Any restrictions of sources? If not, I'm going obscure with Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting. It's by Paizo, of course, but it's for 3.5 instead of their own Pathfinder system.

Anyway, it contains an ACF for Cleric (on page 43) called Holy Warrior. It gives the class full base attack bonus, d10 hit dice, and proficiency with your deity's favored weapon. Though you do lose both domains.

True, you could get similar effect from Persisted Divine Power. And not only would the DMM route allow you keep your domains, you'd be able to take a PrC without losing the benefits. But there's something to be said for simplicity.



Throw on the Militia regional feat from Player's Guide to Faerun (on page 41), and you've got proficiency with all martial weapons. Yeah, I'm mixing stuff from a Golarion sourcebook with stuff from a Faerunian sourcebook. What you never mix settings?



Would it be cheesy to combine Holy Warrior with Cloistered Cleric? Applying them in the most beneficial order, you gain the 6 + Int skill points of Cloistered Cleric, but with none of its drawbacks. You might also wind up with the Knowledge domain, depending on what it means to lose "both" your domains when you have three.

You gain 1-2 hp and +1 damage with 1 melee weapon? Don't trade your highest level spell slots and spells known for that. Pick better domains.

[Maat Mons]

Giving up (or delaying access to) the most powerful features in the game (high-level spells) in exchange for objectively less powerful features (anything other than high-level spells) is intrinsic to being a gish.

If you're awesome at fighting but you didn't sacrifice anything to get there, you're just any old tier-1 character. You're not a gish until you've shot yourself in the foot. The trick is to shoot yourself in the foot just enough to count as a gish, and no more. Take off the pinky toe, maybe.

I feel my build strikes a good balance in that regard. No one can say it's not a gish, because it has big numbers on its class table (instead of big numbers from buff spells), and it got them by giving up objectively better abilities (domains, one the Cleric's most useful and defining features). But it's not limping that much (it has has one less spell per day of each level, and loses access to some off-list spells, but it doesn't delay access to higher-level spells, and it still has a great spell list from which it picks anew each day).

[sleepyphoenixx]

Elf Wizard 6/Swiftblade 9/Abjurant Champion 5.
16 BAB, 9th level spells and all the delicious cheese of 3.0 haste.

[Falontani]

Long story short, hit 16 bab and 9th level spells and you hit the bar for being a good gish. Double ninths + 16 bab for a great gish. Double ninths + 16 bab + initiator for the best gish. Yes this does mean that Cleric out of the box is a good gish. It also means that Druid needs only a tiny bit of work to be a good gish without wildshape.
So to be the best gish you need initiating (probably Crusader, but warblade and swordsage are both nice too), you need 9th level spellcasting in two different classes, Ur Priest + Sublime Chord is your best bet there. So the best Gish is probably something like: Bard 5/Crusader 1/Jade Phoenix Mage 3/Ur-Priest 1/Sublime Chord 1/Mystic Theurge 9. Gets you 9th arcane, 9th divine, divine power, and up to like a 6th level maneuver.

[Ramza00]

Not best Gish build and it is 3rd Party Pathfinder but I been thinking which spell choices would you pick with a

The Noetic Mystic 3 levels
Zealot 1 level
Parasite 1 level from The Codex of Blood: Parasites & Paragons (something like a mystic but a debuffer with animus and the mystic random maneuver recover.)

And the Parasite Class has the practiced initiator trait.

Followed by 10 levels of Soulcaster. Thus a 15th level build. If you play level 16 to 20 go Animus Adept but my games rarely get that far.

Soul Caster and The Noetic are from the Divergent Mystic Class playtest that added more archetypes, prestige, feats etc to said class. The Noetic is a psionic mystic using animus instead of power points and is cha based with different martial traditions.

Soul Caster is a 3/4 bab Gish class that gives 6th level wiz/sorc spells with a spontaneous tradition and other limitations to make it more gishy.

You are 4 caster levels behind a sorcerer, 3 behind a wizard.

But you have full maneuvers with 1 class, another you are 1 IL behind, and a third class poll where you are 2 IL behind. Thus at the start of combat at HD8 we are talking these numbers of maneuvers readied prior to feats.

3 Zealot
5 | 2 Mystic
5 | 2 Parasite
+1 Soulcaster prestige at HD8 more extra ready at HD11 and 14.
14 total ready maneuvers with 8 of them granted round 1 of combat with you get to choose which. +2 more at the end of round 1, +2 more at the end of round 2, +2 more at the end of round 3, round 4 reset. Feats and weapon magic items (Training) can give you more maneuvers known and granted, but also shorten the reset period.

As you can see I love gishes.

[Anthrowhale]

Here's an odd one: Cleric 4/Ordained Champion 3/Fist of Raziel 6/Maho-Tsukai 2/Abjurant Champion 5 BAB+18, the best channeling in the game, AC buffs, and Level 18 (Spell level 9) spontaneous casting off the Cleric and Maho lists including spells to manage your casting stat (Cloud of Taint + Restoration).

[Fouredged Sword]

I am personally a fan of the pure 20/20 wizard gish. You sacrifice some BAB, but still end up able to go toe to toe in melee with just about anything. Who cares about one attack made at -15 BAB in your full attack.

Abjurer Wizard 2/ Master Specialist 4 / Ruathar 2 / Spellsword 1 / Abjurant Champion 5 / Master Specialist 6

You start out as a wizard. It isn't until level 7 that you get weapon proficiency in a martial weapon, but at level 8 you meet all the prereqs for spellsword naturally and thus at level 10 you can start wearing zero armor check armor without penalty. By 15th level your AC is untouchable. At 18th level you get what is essentially evasion + meatle for spells, meaning any successful save nullifies the spell even if it normally has partial effect. Paired with your sky high touch AC and good saves it's hard for any magic effect to do anything to you. You end up with the ability to cast personal range abjuration spells on others as a capstone, meaning you can buff your allies with your souped up abjuration defenses and stick enemy casters inside a selective AMF that follows them around if you pick the right feats.

The reason I like this build setup is that it essentially costs you nothing. If you want to specialize in abjuration this build requires you take only one single feat - Combat casting. You are free to take any metamagic or other feats you like. Ban necromancy and evocation and go about your day. Take elven spell lore for +2 to dispel checks on to of the +5 you get from Master Specialist.

You do only end up with +13 BAB, but you are still highly competent in melee. You just rely on buffs and bonuses and miss out on an iterative attack.

[bean illus]

... an ACF for Cleric (on page 43) called Holy Warrior. ... full base attack bonus, d10 hit dice, and proficiency with your deity's favored weapon. Though you do lose both domains.

... the Militia regional feat ... proficiency with all martial weapons.

Holy Warrior with Cloistered Cleric? ... You ... wind up with the Knowledge domain, ... .

Giving up (or delaying access to) the most powerful features in the game ... for objectively less powerful features ( spells) is intrinsic to being a gish.

If you're awesome at fighting but you didn't sacrifice anything to get there, you're just any old tier-1 character. ...

... But it's not limping that much (it has has one less spell per day of each level, and loses access to some off-list spells, but it doesn't delay access to higher-level spells, and it still has a great spell list from which it picks anew each day).

Thread title is "best" gish, not "a" gish.

Technically, you're right. Gish gets better at martial, and loses some caster. And as a fact, double nines is stronger than nines. But, similar to many 9/9 builds, there's nothing particularly martial about it besides bab, and armor (and feats).

But i feel that the spirit of gish is more to have class abilities that support melee. The cloistered warrior has bab that cleric 7 already has, hp a cleric already heals, a favored weapon you had already (before giving up war domain), and weapons your gish might never use, ... and if you prc you gain none of those benefits.

The Cloistered Holy Warrior's greatest failing is that all it's feature's disappear when you prc. It's like stalwart battle sorcerer, with bab, hp, and weapon; and minus slots, but at standard progression. BUT, sorcerer needs those, whilst the cleric already has them all (divine power, healing, and war domain).

There's a reason so few stories include the cleric dying. And as i see how little a cleric needs those things, it looks like cloistered warrior trades a spell per level and 2 domain powers for 4 skill points per level, ... for 5 levels until you prc, so 20 ranks total.

It DOES do what it does, and without losing even 1 caster level, which is nice (and with 6 skills!), and zero feat tax.

It would make a GREAT E-6 to E-9 archer gish build. It gets full access to 3rd levels spells, and full bab. Point blank, precise shot, rapid shot, manyshot, greater rapid shot. Full suite in both modes at E-6 (cleric5/fighter1). Not even human duskblade can do it.

Then prc. Into ordained champion, lol, or JPM. Or something

Bard 5/Crusader 1/Jade Phoenix Mage 3/Ur-Priest 1/Sublime Chord 1/Mystic Theurge 9.

Gets you 9th arcane, 9th divine, divine power, and up to like a 6th level maneuver.

Nice.
80 ranks, and 2 feats.
It needs 14 Int (or 12+ human), and it ask for know devo. Could 2 feats let you skip crusader, and pick up JPM 4?

Spoiler: 80 ranks and 2 feats

Show

Skills: Bluff 6
Concentration 9
Knowledge (arcana) 13
Knowledge (history) 2
Knowledge (religion) 8
Knowledge (the planes) 5

Listen 13
Perform 10
Profession (astrologer) 6
Spellcraft 8 ranks

Total = 80 skills

Feats: Iron Will , Spell Focus (evil)

*A great gish, imo, needs just a bit more than spells, BAB , and AC. It needs enough melee features to encourage and support melee as a primary option, and maybe ways to synergize magic/melee.

Casting a 6th+ level spell, then swinging once for 30 damage (or a miss), isn't really gishing. That's a caster that wasted an action.

Those things are what i like about ordained champion. There are multiple ways to use swift, move, standard, and full actions, and they all encourage and support melee with magic interaction. It synergizes with your casting classes, and with other classes and prc.