Abnormal Self Buff Gish Spells?

[Skiblit]

So. There are a lot of spells. And I have looked through the whole phb and a couple of other books (complete mage). But I figured I could ask about some spells I might have missed here.

What are your favorite self buff Gish style spells?
I would love to hear any off the wall suggestions for self buff Gish Spells and how you use them.

[Nifft]

List what you consider "normal" and we can augment from there.

[Zombulian]

So. There are a lot of spells. And I have looked through the whole phb and a couple of other books (complete mage). But I figured I could ask about some spells I might have missed here.

What are your favorite self buff Gish style spells?
I would love to hear any off the wall suggestions for self buff Gish Spells and how you use them.

Cloud of Knives is pretty goofy. If you have Sneak Attack damage or the like, a free action attack is pretty cool.

[Thurbane]

• Fist of Stone 1 (SC)
• Ghostly Tail 1 (RotD)
• Instant Diversion 1 (RotD)
• Balor Nimbus 2 (SC)
• Bladeweave 2 (SC)
• Claws of Darkness 2 (SC)
• Daggerspell Stance 2 (SC)
• Death Armor 2 (SC)
• Fearsome Grapple 2 (SC)
• Graz'zt's Long Grasp 2 (BoVD)
• Masochism 2 (BoVD)
• Sadism 2 (BoVD)
• Silver Dragonmail 2 (CoV)
• Battlemagic Perception 3 (HoB)
• Dragonskin 3 (SC)
• Golden Dragonmail 3 (CoV)
• Handfang 3 (SK)
• Spectral Weapon 3 (CAd)
• Abyssal Might 4 (BoVD)
• Displacer Form 4 (SC)
• Flame Whips 4 (SC)
• Flight of the Dragon 4 (SC)
• Ilyykur's Mantle 4 (SC)
• Radiant Shield 4 (BoED)
• Sandform 4 (Snd)
• Watchful Ancestors 4 (MoE)
• Acid Sheath 5 (SC)
• Draconic Polymorph 5 (Dr)
• Dragonsight 5 (SC)
• Duelward 5 (SC)
• Gutsnake 5 (SC)
• Nezram's Sapphire Screen of Shielding 5 (LEoF)
• Nightstalker's Transformation 5 (CAd)
• Resonating Resistance 5 (BoVD)
• Shadow Form 5 (CAd)
• Spore Cloak 6 (RoF)
• Stone Body 6 (RoF)
• Body of War 7 (SC)
• Crown of Despair 7 (ECS)
• Elemental Body 7 (SC)
• Eye of the Beholder 7 (BoVD)
• Kiss of the Vampire 7 (SC)
• Ghostform 8 (SC)
• Heart of Stone 8 (SC)
• Lightning Ring 8 (SC)

[ExLibrisMortis]

Sakkratar's triple strike, if you can Persist it. Lost Empires of Faerûn.

[Skiblit]

• Fist of Stone 1 (SC)
• Ghostly Tail 1 (RotD)
• Instant Diversion 1 (RotD)
• Balor Nimbus 2 (SC)
• Bladeweave 2 (SC)
• Claws of Darkness 2 (SC)
• Daggerspell Stance 2 (SC)
• Death Armor 2 (SC)
• Fearsome Grapple 2 (SC)
• Graz'zt's Long Grasp 2 (BoVD)
• Masochism 2 (BoVD)
• Sadism 2 (BoVD)
• Silver Dragonmail 2 (CoV)
• Battlemagic Perception 3 (HoB)
• Dragonskin 3 (SC)
• Golden Dragonmail 3 (CoV)
• Handfang 3 (SK)
• Spectral Weapon 3 (CAd)
• Abyssal Might 4 (BoVD)
• Displacer Form 4 (SC)
• Flame Whips 4 (SC)
• Flight of the Dragon 4 (SC)
• Ilyykur's Mantle 4 (SC)
• Radiant Shield 4 (BoED)
• Sandform 4 (Snd)
• Watchful Ancestors 4 (MoE)
• Acid Sheath 5 (SC)
• Draconic Polymorph 5 (Dr)
• Dragonsight 5 (SC)
• Duelward 5 (SC)
• Gutsnake 5 (SC)
• Nezram's Sapphire Screen of Shielding 5 (LEoF)
• Nightstalker's Transformation 5 (CAd)
• Resonating Resistance 5 (BoVD)
• Shadow Form 5 (CAd)
• Spore Cloak 6 (RoF)
• Stone Body 6 (RoF)
• Body of War 7 (SC)
• Crown of Despair 7 (ECS)
• Elemental Body 7 (SC)
• Eye of the Beholder 7 (BoVD)
• Kiss of the Vampire 7 (SC)
• Ghostform 8 (SC)
• Heart of Stone 8 (SC)
• Lightning Ring 8 (SC)

Fantastic list thank you tons.

[Skiblit]

Sakkratar's triple strike, if you can Persist it. Lost Empires of Faerûn.

That is pretty strong... I like it lol thanks!

[Skiblit]

Cloud of Knives is pretty goofy. If you have Sneak Attack damage or the like, a free action attack is pretty cool.

That is a pretty good idea especially with sneak attack sadly I'm going for 18 caster levels and not a swiftblade build otherwise this would be gangster. I'll keep it in the back pocket thanks!

[Skiblit]

List what you consider "normal" and we can augment from there.

I mean that would be a long list. Basically I wanted creative ways to use spells to augment myself in ways that may not be apparent at first glance. So obviously thinks like wraithstrike, magic weapon, true strike, bulls strength don't need to be mentioned. But like the guy who suggested using persist spell on triple strike. That's some good stuff.

[Hiro Quester]

The Heart of X spells are very good all-day buffs. Plus expendable for Freedom of movement, stoneskin, fire shield and feather-fall. Indispensable.

The Bite of the WereX are awesome buffs. Bite of the Werebear gives +16 Str, +2 Dex, +8 CON, and +7 Natural Armor. And a bite attack. (Your hands become claws, which might be a limitation for builds that depend on wielding a particular weapon.) Yes please.

And doubleplus to cloud of knives, if you use sneak-attack. Especially if you can persist it. A free action attack each round, all day. (It really should also give you a bonus to intimidate checks.)

Edit: Plus I forgot to add that if you have all 4 heart of X spells on you you gain heavy fortification (immune to sneak attack and critical hits).

Also a couple of damage-and-healing spells ideal for gishes.

Vampiric Touch (touch attack doing 10d6 to your enemy, and healing you for that many HPs).

And in that same vein, Energy Absorption:
An all-day energy resistance 10 to all types, plus you can use an immediate action to end the spell whenever you are the subject of an energy attack. Then you are immune to that energy and absorb half the energy as healing. (Get your friendly druid to prepare Fire Seeds and give you the package of holly berry bombs to carry around. They speak the activation code and you explode at your enemies for 200+ points of fire damage, that also heals you for 100+ points.)

[Skiblit]

The Heart of X spells are very good all-day buffs. Plus expendable for Freedom of movement, stoneskin, fire shield and feather-fall. Indispensable.

The Bite of the WereX are awesome buffs. Bite of the Werebear gives +16 Str, +2 Dex, +8 CON, and +7 Natural Armor. And a bite attack. (Your hands become claws, which might be a limitation for builds that depend on wielding a particular weapon.) Yes please.

And doubleplus to cloud of knives, if you use sneak-attack. Especially if you can persist it. A free action attack each round, all day. (It really should also give you a bonus to intimidate checks.)

Edit: Plus I forgot to add that if you have all 4 heart of X spells on you you gain heavy fortification (immune to sneak attack and critical hits).

Also a couple of damage-and-healing spells ideal for gishes.

Vampiric Touch (touch attack doing 10d6 to your enemy, and healing you for that many HPs).

And in that same vein, Energy Absorption:
An all-day energy resistance 10 to all types, plus you can use an immediate action to end the spell whenever you are the subject of an energy attack. Then you are immune to that energy and absorb half the energy as healing. (Get your friendly druid to prepare Fire Seeds and give you the package of holly berry bombs to carry around. They speak the activation code and you explode at your enemies for 200+ points of fire damage, that also heals you for 100+ points.)

Fantastic post thank you. I laughed pretty hard about fire seeds and am gonna have to pull that one off somehow.

[Thurbane]

That is a pretty good idea especially with sneak attack sadly I'm going for 18 caster levels and not a swiftblade build otherwise this would be gangster. I'll keep it in the back pocket thanks!

And doubleplus to cloud of knives, if you use sneak-attack. Especially if you can persist it. A free action attack each round, all day. (It really should also give you a bonus to intimidate checks.)

Nightstalkers Transformation gives +3d6 "Sneak Attack".

If you can spare feats, Martial Stance (Assassin's Stance) gives +2d6 Sneak Attack.

[Skiblit]

Nightstalkers Transformation gives +3d6 "Sneak Attack".

If you can spare feats, Martial Stance (Assassin's Stance) gives +2d6 Sneak Attack.

...... Hmm. I am not sure if I can spare feats... But I might have to now. Lol Great tip.

[Nifft]

The heroics spell gives you a Fighter bonus feat.

Cast heroics twice as a 10th level caster.

First casting gets you Martial Study: Shadow Stride (which has no prereqs), and the second allows you to gain Martial Stance: Assassin's Stance.


If you lose the feat while you're in the Stance, does that actually break the Stance? Probably it should, but nothing says that it does, so you have a non-zero shot at convincing your DM that you should get to keep a Stance all day for the price of 2 second level slots.

[Hiro Quester]

Nightstalkers Transformation gives +3d6 "Sneak Attack".

If you can spare feats, Martial Stance (Assassin's Stance) gives +2d6 Sneak Attack.

This is better in some ways. I'm not a huge fan of spells like this (also body of War, elemental Body, etc.) that give you buffs, but turn you into the Big Stupid Fighter (by losing your spellcasting abilities while they are in effect).

You are a Gish! You specialize in using the awesome combination of spellcasting and martial skill to get up close to the bad guys to murder them, while casting spells to augment your abilities (stay out of trouble, control the battlefield, etc).

Losing the spellcasting feels like totally abandoning your character's forte. and you are often more fragile than the BSF. What if you need to teleport the hell out of there, or cast Alter Fortune to preroll a save?

[Skiblit]

This is better in some ways. I'm not a huge fan of spells like this (also body of War, elemental Body, etc.) that give you buffs, but turn you into the Big Stupid Fighter (by losing your spellcasting abilities while they are in effect).

You are a Gish! You specialize in using the awesome combination of spellcasting and martial skill to get up close to the bad guys to murder them, while casting spells to augment your abilities (stay out of trouble, control the battlefield, etc).

Losing the spellcasting feels like totally abandoning your character's forte. and you are often more fragile than the BSF. What if you need to teleport the hell out of there, or cast Alter Fortune to preroll a save?

I'm on my phone at the moment and have not read the nightstalkers transformation yet does it remove your casting ability? Because I largely agree with you on the definition of my Gish. I definitely want to have spell slots for my oh **** moments but I also do want a few that just help me get in something's face and murder it.

[rel]

Has anyone mentioned polymorph? Good for self buffing, good for party buffing and good for utility.

[Nifft]

Has anyone mentioned polymorph? Good for self buffing, good for party buffing and good for utility.

Too obvious for the "abnormal self-buff" thread, would be my guess.

[Hiro Quester]

Hello, Gishes!

Look at your sword. Now look at Thunderlance (SC). Look back at your short little metal sword. Now back to Thunderlance.

Sadly, your sword isn't a Thunderlance. But if you stopped using that heavy, limited, little sword, and used Thunderlance, you could make awesome melee attacks.

Look down at your sword. It only has 5 foot reach. Isn't that short and limiting?

Now look back up at the enemy. He is 20 feet away, and thinks he is safe. Can you hit him with that little thing? If you get close enough to hit him, can he hit you back? Of course he can.

Now look down. Your sword is a Thunderlance. It can reach anything from 1 ft to 20 ft, changing length freely, at your will. Look up again. that enemy is now within your reach. Even from way over there. And he can't hit you back.

What's in your casting glove? It's a wand of Heroics. It grants you fighter feats when needed. Give yourself combat reflexes for the next three minutes.

Now look at your thunderlance. You can now use it to take an attack of opportunity against every enemy who leaves a square within a 20 ft radius of you. That includes everyone with less than 20 ft reach who tries to attack you.

You always get first blood with a Thunderlance.

Look at your sword again. Your sword only does a measly 1d8 damage. Now look at Thunderlance. Thunderlance does an impressive 3d6 damage. And it does three times its damage on a critical hit.

Look at your hands again. You can hold the thunderlance in one hand. But you have two hands. So now grab Thunderlance with both hands. Now milk your high-casting-stat-equipped attack roll, for sweet power attack damage increases. (Remember Bite of the Werebear? It also grants Power Attack. So does your wand of Heroics.)

Now look back at your sword, in your scrawny caster's arms. You need to be strong to wield that heavy thing and do damage.

But look at Thunderlance. It is a pure lance of force, it takes no strength at all to use. It uses your main casting stat, the one you have buffed to high heaven. For both attack and damage rolls.

See how you can dump strength, and still hit harder than the enemy barbarian? That barbarian is now sad. He wishes he could hit like you and your Thunderlance. He isn't sad for long, though, because he soon is dead.

What's in your hand? Your heavy metal sword. It hurts people, but that's about it. Look at me. Now look back. Your sword is a Thunderlance. Look at the thing you hate. The enemy mage --the one you most want to murder to protect your friends-- with his fancy shield spell and mage armor.

Look at the Thunderlance. It's made of pure force. It can dispel stuff. When you hit the enemy mage, you roll a dispel check, and dispel his force effects. Now look at the enemy mage. After your first hit, he's even easier to hit and your second attack of the round is more likely to hit than your first. The enemy mage is also dead now.

Can your humble metal sword destroy the enemy's shield and armor while damaging him? Of course not. It's not a Thunderlance.

Anything is possible when your weapon is a Thunderlance, and not a sad little sword.

It's lance of pure force!

Edit:
Look at your DM. He is troubled by how powerful you are with this spell.

Look down at your books. Try to find a way to persist Thunderlance. This is hard. It's a 4th level spell.

Look up. Your DM is throwing a DMG at your head.

[danielxcutter]

All three versions of Energy Surge are nice, but aside from the Greater version, both are persistable at high levels - Lesser is 2nd level, normal is 3rd.

Cloud of Knives is good, but in melee, Steeldance hits twice per round. The former deals damage that scales with caster level, the latter just uses your casting stat. Depends on your needs, I guess.

If you use bludgeoning weapons, Greater Mighty Wallop is a great damage boost.

...If you do go down that way, Necrotic Empowerment is quite a good buff. +8 enhancement bonus to Dex, Int, and Wis, +8 natural armor, +5 competence on Fort saves, and 100 temporary hit points. Unlike the other Necrotic spells, it doesn't require you to plant a cyst on your opponent either. You need to take the Mother Cyst feat, though, and it's an 8th level spell. Still, if you're inclined to use the spell line... be my guest.

A gish who uses natural weapons - probably either a polymorphed one or an Enlightened Fist - benefits greatly from Blood Wind. Make your natural weapon attacks ranged? Yes please.

[Forrestfire]

Look down at your books. Try to find a way to persist Thunderlance. This is hard. It's a 4th level spell.

This is actually pretty trivial. A minor schema of concurrent infusions costs 12,800gp, and a minor schema of metamagic item costs 6,000gp. You'll need to actually have Persistent Spell, but if you do, you can use these items to imitate and persist any spell of up to 4th level.

[Hiro Quester]

This is actually pretty trivial. A minor schema of concurrent infusions costs 12,800gp, and a minor schema of metamagic item costs 6,000gp. You'll need to actually have Persistent Spell, but if you do, you can use these items to imitate and persist any spell of up to 4th level.

I didn’t mean it was impossible. Meta magic reducers like Practical Metamagic (persist) will do it too. On some builds it might even be worth Arcane Thesis.

But by the time you can persist a 4th level spell, you can probably afford a cold iron eager warning spellstoring evil outsider bane shattermantle sword, with a wand chamber and Greater Magic Weapon. That might be better than a thunderlance.

And for a charisma based swiftblade, slippers of battledancing will enable you sword to use CHA for attack and damage.

Until you have such a combo, it’s a rather awesome and under-appreciated spell.

[GrayDeath]

Hello, Gishes!

Look at your sword. Now look at Thunderlance (SC). Look back at your short little metal sword. Now back to Thunderlance.

Sadly, your sword isn't a Thunderlance. But if you stopped using that heavy, limited, little sword, and used Thunderlance, you could make awesome melee attacks.

Look down at your sword. It only has 5 foot reach. Isn't that short and limiting?

Now look back up at the enemy. He is 20 feet away, and thinks he is safe. Can you hit him with that little thing? If you get close enough to hit him, can he hit you back? Of course he can.

Now look down. Your sword is a Thunderlance. It can reach anything from 1 ft to 20 ft, changing length freely, at your will. Look up again. that enemy is now within your reach. Even from way over there. And he can't hit you back.

What's in your casting glove? It's a wand of Heroics. It grants you fighter feats when needed. Give yourself combat reflexes for the next three minutes.

Now look at your thunderlance. You can now use it to take an attack of opportunity against every enemy who leaves a square within a 20 ft radius of you. That includes everyone with less than 20 ft reach who tries to attack you.

You always get first blood with a Thunderlance.

Look at your sword again. Your sword only does a measly 1d8 damage. Now look at Thunderlance. Thunderlance does an impressive 3d6 damage. And it does three times its damage on a critical hit.

Look at your hands again. You can hold the thunderlance in one hand. But you have two hands. So now grab Thunderlance with both hands. Now milk your high-casting-stat-equipped attack roll, for sweet power attack damage increases. (Remember Bite of the Werebear? It also grants Power Attack. So does your wand of Heroics.)

Now look back at your sword, in your scrawny caster's arms. You need to be strong to wield that heavy thing and do damage.

But look at Thunderlance. It is a pure lance of force, it takes no strength at all to use. It uses your main casting stat, the one you have buffed to high heaven. For both attack and damage rolls.

See how you can dump strength, and still hit harder than the enemy barbarian? That barbarian is now sad. He wishes he could hit like you and your Thunderlance. He isn't sad for long, though, because he soon is dead.

What's in your hand? Your heavy metal sword. It hurts people, but that's about it. Look at me. Now look back. Your sword is a Thunderlance. Look at the thing you hate. The enemy mage --the one you most want to murder to protect your friends-- with his fancy shield spell and mage armor.

Look at the Thunderlance. It's made of pure force. It can dispel stuff. When you hit the enemy mage, you roll a dispel check, and dispel his force effects. Now look at the enemy mage. After your first hit, he's even easier to hit and your second attack of the round is more likely to hit than your first. The enemy mage is also dead now.

Can your humble metal sword destroy the enemy's shield and armor while damaging him? Of course not. It's not a Thunderlance.

Anything is possible when your weapon is a Thunderlance, and not a sad little sword.

It's lance of pure force!

Edit:
Look at your DM. He is troubled by how powerful you are with this spell.

Look down at your books. Try to find a way to persist Thunderlance. This is hard. It's a 4th level spell.

Look up. Your DM is throwing a DMG at your head.

Quoted for pure waesome LOLZness.

[Skiblit]

"look up, your dm is throwing DMG at your head." Yeah she is. Really good post though. I think I need a thunder Lance.

[daremetoidareyo]

Nightstalkers Transformation gives +3d6 "Sneak Attack".

If you can spare feats, Martial Stance (Assassin's Stance) gives +2d6 Sneak Attack.

Why spare feats when you can cast mirror move and hire a low level swordsage to hang out with.

[lord_khaine]

Look up. Your DM is throwing a DMG at your head.

That ending made my day

[Hiro Quester]

Thanks. It was fun to write, too.