The Gish

[Valairn]

I love playing a Gish I always have. (For those of you not in the know, it refers to a multi-class fighter/mage more or less.) I also know a lot of people who love playing gish's. Sometimes I get this sense that it's the holy grail of DnD, but I've always wondered, aside from mechanical strengths, what makes people like gish's so much?

So what about Gish's appeal to you?

[rollfrenzy]

The blend of magic and sword is awesome.

Although you refer to Mechanical benefits. You are going to get a lot of responses showing you why every gish build out there is crap.

but I agree with you. Gish is fun to play regardless of optimization.

[AKA_Bait]

rollfrenzy pretty much has it right. It's not mechanically optimal but being that guy who can throw a fireball and then turn around and decapitate someone with a greatsword is just plain cool. Much like Necromancy... but I digress.

[Valairn]

Certain gish builds are actually mechanically strong, depending on your end goal. Though compared to the normal caster cheese, its not anywhere close to comparable.

I guess a good follow on question would be, what are your favorite gish builds?

[Keld Denar]

A Gish serves a pretty specific role in a party, and 11/12 times, its not the primary arcane caster. A Gish can make an outstanding tank using spells to suppliment AC and HP. A Gish can make a good damage dealer, using spells such as Wraithstrike and/or Whirling Blade and/or Arcane Strike in conjunction with Power Attack and offensive buffs, then he serves a role similar to Arcane Trickster builds. A Gish can even suppliment support, tossing up spells like Mass Fly, Evards, and Solid Fog that don't have saves. That said, a Gish is seldom batman, and almost always breaks the first rule of optimization (thou shalt not lose caster levels!!!!). The biggest weighting factors in a Gish is trying to balance caster levels (more and better spells) with BAB (for Power Attack damage). Some Gish builds value one more than the other.

As far as Gish builds, I've heard quite a few, from the simple:
Fighter/Wizard/Spellsword/Eldritch Knight
To the complicated and sometimes obscene:
Paladin/Sorc/Swiftblade/Eldritch Knight
Paladin/Bard/Sublime Chord/IotSV
Paladin/Bard/Dragon Disciple

The most important things for a Gish is to pick a couple tricks and stick to them. You CAN'T get 9th level spells with DC40 saves and 20/20 BAB. Its just not possible. You CAN get enough of both to be VERY effective, with a little careful planning.

[Roderick_BR]

It may sound funny, but I liked gishs since when I first played Final Fantasy Tactics. I like to create my character, and then use the rules to build him mechanically. The classic example is the elf that wields both magic and steel. A cleric that requires a few more battle-oriented abilities (feats) is another example. A guy that can both use his sword and his brain (fighter/rogue). It's all about what you want to make.
My latest character (going into epic) is a knight type, mixing paladin and crusader levels, for divine butt-kickery, and a few swordsage levels to make him more flexible, as he's a more running type, instead of armor-clad (not that I dislike knights in shinning armor, I just wanted to variate this time).

I've been actually wondering about making a monk/sorcerer/paladin, a mystical sage fueled with divine power, using those feats that lets you combine classes' features.

[Valairn]

My current approach is pretty simple actually, with a little DM fiat to help(God bless the nice ones), Fighter/wizard/Abj. Champ/Eldritch Knight. Its got a really solid BaB with pretty decent spells, optimized version still manages 9th level spells before the blessed "cap" of 20.

[-Cor-]

And once again we come back to the Duskblade. A neat class, and one I'm playing currently. The Channeling gives even more flavor.

[Valairn]

The Duskblade is pretty much a gish in a can, it keeps well and you can store it :-D, but I prefer the multi-class variants, just because I'm like that.

[Thrawn183]

Multi-class variants are stronger if well built, because they get better spells than a duskblade, but I think it's pretty tough to find a better class than a duskblade to start a new player in. Give 'em power attack and improved trip, stick 'em in some decent armor and they get all your standard melee'r fun-ness plus the ability to cast a few spells so they don't get bored. I like to think of the duskblade as training wheels for a player wanting to play a gish.

[valadil]

I like gish because it fits my power gaming style very nicely. I don't like picking one thing and doing it as best as possible. I'd rather pick 3 things and do them each at 90% efficiency (note that this is 90% of the other players at the table, not 90% of whatever is floating around the wotc optimization boards). My favorite gish was something like wizard -> human paragon -> spell sword -> eldritch knight. Also saw a sorc/pally variant that took longer to mature but was also quite nasty.

[Kaelik]

I two am a fan of Gishes.

One that I enjoyed was:

Duskblade 3/Wizard 2/SpellSword 1/Abjurant Champion 5/Phantom Blade 9

You can mix and match for something like Duskblade 1/Wizard 2/Human Paragon 3/Spell Sword 3/Abjurant Champion 5/Phantom Blade 6 if you enjoy the +2 stat too much.

Or you can use Ruathar to good effect with:

Wizard 2/Human Paragon 3/Ruathar 3/Abjurant Champion 5/Phantom Blade 7

For 18th level Wizard casting (Caster level 20), 18 BAB, and a host of special abilities

[Deepblue706]

Don't know what Phantom Blade is, but a favorite Gish build of mine is:

Fighter 1/Wizard5/Eldritch Knight 1/Spellsword1/Abjurant Champion5/Eldritch Knight 7.

CL 18, BAB 17 at 20.

Fighter 1 gets you a bonus feat.
Wizard 5 gets you a bonus feat.
EK 1 gets you a bonus feat.

Not many special abilities, tho - but Abjurant Champion grants enough of those, anyway.

I've also always liked gishes for the same reasons as most others. What's cooler than swords, or magic? Swords AND magic! Having lots of options is what makes D&D fun.

[Keld Denar]

The Whirling Blade spell from Complete Arcane, I think, reprinted in Spell Compendium, I think, seems to have been designed completely with the Gish in mind. It doesn't have a save, so a Gish needs to not have a high caster stat. It is ranged, but counts as melee. It only hits hostile targets, so it can be cast into close melee. It also allows for brutal spell delivery via Spellsword channeling. Since its on the wiz/sorc list AND the bard list, so its useable is different builds. It's also only a level 2 spell! Some things I've seen done with it:

Spellsword using it with Arcane Strike, Power Attack, and channeling Orb of Cold through it for mega damage. At higher levels, casting Twinned Whirling Blade and/or Quickened Whirling Blades for multiple attacks vs a whole line of targets all at highest BAB.

Paladin/Bard/Silver Dragon Disciple using Power Attack, Divine Might, Bard Song, and DD's inherant stat bonuses for big damage.

Combine it with the Mobile Spellcasting feat from Complete Mage, and a decent movement speed (from Fly) and you can line up most foes on most turns and blast down the line of them.

Another nice Gish trick is to use Quickened Benign Transposition (a 5the level spell) in conjuntion with a fast moving familiar (such as a hawk or raven). The familiar moves up to a target with a double move if needed. Cast Quickened BT to swap places with it. Full Attack!

[Yrnes]

Right now I'm running a

Fighter 1/ Monk 4/ Sorc 2/ Abj Champ 5/ Eldritch Knight 2

Unarmored "armored" AC in the 50s thanks to the class abilities, spells, feats and gear. Plus evasion and the big reflex save is always a nice change of pace for a melee fighter. I got a couple of 10d6 fireballs in spellstoring gauntlets my character wears, so I actually nuke myself (and sometimes some other PCs ) and hope I make the save as I fun headlong into the battle

[weenie]

One of the best gish builds I've come across is Duskblade3/wizard4/abjurant champion5/Wizard8.

Take Extra spell(divine power) to get your BaB up to 20(which also takes your wizard caster level to 20 tnx to abjurant champion), and channel all the touch spells you like. Oh, and you get 9th level spells and 2 bonus fets as well. Gotta love it.

[Akennedy]

I hate to sound ignorant, but... Phantom blade?

[AmberVael]

I've never heard of Phantom Blade either. After consulting my list of classes, I have to assume it is either homebrew, doesn't exist, or that Kaelik was referring to the Knight Phantom class.
Rather odd class, really...

[Kaelik]

I've never heard of Phantom Blade either. After consulting my list of classes, I have to assume it is either homebrew, doesn't exist, or that Kaelik was referring to the Knight Phantom class.
Rather odd class, really...

Yeah, thanks, I meant Knight Phantom. My mistake.

[axraelshelm]

psychic warrior thats enough

[Zincorium]

Honestly, I've been itching to try the Swiftblade PrC from wizard's site in an actual game.

Especially with battle sorceror and Abjurant champion. The spells known issue never really hurts when you're only relying on two spells for combat effectiveness.

[de-trick]

I like battle sorcerer, if you want him in full plate take armored caster 2 times

[TheLogman]

Havok Mage from the Mini's handbook is fun. He can channel his spells through his melee attacks. Psychic warrior is a fan favorite, although he does more self buffs than Wizard casting. Same with the Cleric. Druid doesn't have the flashy spells of a Wizard, but a Gorilla, Dinosaur, or maybe just a bear that suddenly wraps up your legs/Ice Storms/Flame Strikes you, then beats you senseless is pretty good.

[Saph]

Gishes can actually be pretty good. They don't have quite the spell power of a wizard or sorcerer, but they usually have significantly better defences - their mixture of classes and PrCs give them slightly better saves and much better HP than a straight caster. They're also a lot more flexible.

Abjurant Champion, from Complete Mage, is the gold standard PrC for gish builds - it's so good that it's hard to find a reason not to use it. Sublime Chord's powerful but very flavour-specific and can't be taken until level 11, which puts it out of range of most games.

My personal favourite is Paladin 2 / Battle Sorcerer 4 / Abjurant Champion 5 / Spellsword 1 / Battle Sorcerer 8. This gives you 17/20 BAB, puts you only 1 spell level behind a straight-classed Sorcerer and only a few HP behind a straight-classed Paladin, and is playable and fairly effective at every level (the only point at which it's a little weak is levels 4-5, but before and after that you'll be fine). Haven't had the chance to try it out in a game yet, though.

- Saph

[Lolth]

You make me sad. :(

My main PC on our D&D chat (check it out!) is a Duskblade, and I don't feel like she's training wheels material.

:(

We don't allow ALL the options in the world (no Battle Sorcerers, for example), but a Duskblade is a nice mix.

[Frosty]

I like Wizard3/Fighter1/Spellsword3/AbjurantChampion5/EldritchKnight8

I think that's the build if I got the Spellsword requirements right. Spellsword gives a bonus feat and will allow you to lower your spell failure chance enough that if you combine with Mithril, you can wear decent armor with 0 ASF.

This build gets 18 or 17 BAB I forgot, and also gives 9th level spells.

[weenie]

I like Wizard3/Fighter1/Spellsword3/AbjurantChampion5/EldritchKnight8

I think that's the build if I got the Spellsword requirements right. Spellsword gives a bonus feat and will allow you to lower your spell failure chance enough that if you combine with Mithril, you can wear decent armor with 0 ASF.

This build gets 18 or 17 BAB I forgot, and also gives 9th level spells.

Why do you need armor, when you can get better bonuses via abjurant champion?

[Frosty]

Because having an armor slot is good? I can get things like Fortification.

[deadseashoals]

Why do you need armor, when you can get better bonuses via abjurant champion?

Abjurant champion doesn't help your armor AC unless you use greater luminous armor.

Gishes are strong sauce! The only way in which they could be considered "weak" is that multiclass gishes have a lot of times in their earlier levels where they're not so great, but once they get to start taking PrC levels, they quickly outshine any nonmagical melee classes by leaps and bounds.

[bignate]

i must admit that this thread has just taught me what "gish" means but i have been playing them for years. i think that are great.

i think they kinda come from the old RPG video games like the dragon warrior series where the main character could fight really well and cast a good selection of spells.

i am currently playing a one with a build not mentioned on here yet but that i think is really nice, and fairly optimised...

currently: bard 4/ranger 4
goal: bard 16/ranger 4

at 20 this will give me BAB 16 and 6th level bard spells plus i am quite the skill monkey with 6 skillpoints every level plus 2 for human and 13 int and i picked up knack from the PHB2.


another gish build that i thought would be cool but havent got to is:

dwarf, fighter 1/wizard 4/runesmith 5/eldritch knight 10

this one will end ip with BAB 15, 9th level spells and casting in full plate with a shield. not to mention decent hitpoints with a good con.