[3.5] Are These Builds Worth Playing?

[IserLuick]

Hi everyone!

I want to make a new character for a game that I'm playing with some friends, here are some of the characteristics of the game:

• We're playing in Forgotten Realms.
• Almost all the books are allowed, we consult the DM to agree on how to play certain rules.
• We will play epic levels, our characters are lvl 19 right now.

My friends have a lot more experience than me making characters, and they optimize their builds whenever they can; I would like to do the same to a certain extent, but I would like to do a character that can do unique amazing things.

My character is going to be lvl 19 and he is a human, he has to be of good alignment to be able to use some awesome Book of Exalted Deeds spells.

I thought about making a character that specializes in channeling magic through his sword as his battle style (I don't want to play a full Duskblade because I would like to use a wide variety of spells); after some time looking at the books and asking some questions, I found what I consider the three best class features that let you channel spells through a weapon:

• The Duskblade's Arcane Channeling (3rd level):From Player's Handbook II, this ability can let you cast and channel touch spells through your weapon; you can hold the charge of a spell (I actually asked for this particular issue, you can see it here: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=9363.new#new), so I want to use it to channel spells that let you do touches per caster level; for example, the Storm Touch and the Scalding Touch from Magic of Eberron (I asked my DM and he said that I can choose a few spells from this book), so I can hold the charge of those spells and, on the following turns, do full-attacks dealing the damage of my weapon and the spell on each attack.
• The Ordained Champion's Channel Spell (the revised version): From Complete Champion, this ability can let you channel any spell that has a creature or creatures as targets, using a move action to channel the spell and smash it on the enemy with a successful hit. This can channel a larger number of spells than the Arcane Channeling, so you can channel some ray and area spells, and this ability can be used an indefinite number of times. You can't hold the charge of these spells as the rule specifies that it discharges from the weapon when you hit.
• The Spellsword's Channel Spell: From Complete Warrior, this ability is just amazing! This can let you channel any spell that you can cast into your weapon and, if you hit a target, the target is the only one to be affected by the spell, and that allows you to do some pretty cool stuff like channel a Wall of Fire or a Cloudkill and make the enemy suffer for a good number of rounds (I asked about this too, you can see the thread here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=275977)

I know that there are other ways to channel spells through a weapon, like the Spell Storing weapon enhancement or the Smiting Spell feat from Player's handbook II, but I want to be able to channel spells without altering the spell slot level or having to depend on my weapon's capacity to do so.

I made a couple of builds with this idea in mind, and I managed to make builds that have these ablities with a good variety of spells; some of them have one, others have two and others have all of these channeling abilities. The problem is... I don't know which one to use, that's why I'm making this topic.

I'll show you what I've got, and I would like you to give me your opinions and tell me if these builds can make a good character to play (some of them have exp penaltys from multiclassing, but that's not a problem because one of my friends already has that penalty too, so we could level up at the same speed if I use them).

What I would like to know about these builds is the following:

• If the build is worth playing for you;
• If the build is good, which Tier would it belong to (if you're familiar with the tier system);
• If there is a way to make it better, mantaining his channeling abilities, what would it be?

You don't have to do this for all of the builds; if there is one that is more interesting to you, I will apreciate it if you share your thoughts.

I made some tables to show the level advancement of these builds, showing the special abilities, scores and feats that they get (as well as the feats chosen to meet the requirements for prestige classes) on each level from 1 to 20. If the info is wrong in some place, please tell me so I can fix it.

Here are the builds:

1. Wizard 5/Eldritch Knight 3/Dragonslayer 1/Spellsword 5/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight 1

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As you can see, this build has only the Spellsword's channeling ability, but it gets +17 BAB and 9th level spells at level 20, meeting the normal standard of a gish build.

2. Duskblade 3/Wizard 3/Spellsword 5/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight 4

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This build has the Arcane Channeling and the Spellsword's Channel Spell, but he doesn't get 9th level spells at level 20. As the Duskblade, the Wizard and the Spellsword get a lot of knowledge skills, I could make a very good use of the Knowledge Devotion feat from Complete Champion and, thanks to the Wizard, I can make scrolls to have a good number and variety of spells to use.

2.1. Duskblade 3/Sorcerer 4/Spellsword 5/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight 3

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This build is a variant from the previous one but; with the sorcerer spellcasting, he has more spells per day than the wizard but he cant have the variety of spells that the wizard has and he doesn't get all the knowledges on the sorcerer levels.

3. Duskblade 3/Sorcerer 3/Cleric 1/Ordained Champion1/Abjurant Champion 5/Ordained Champion 2/Spellsword 5 (I call this "The Channeling Master")

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I managed to get all of these abilities into one single build. This character doesn't have any need to cast spells from a distance, he can basically fight by channeling spells all the time for all the duration of one encounter. He gets 5th level spells one level later than a Duskblade does.
He gets the 2 extra fighter bonus feats from the Combat feats class feature of the Ordained Champion, sacrificing the granted powers of his two Cleric domains besides the War Domain. He also has a fair number of Smites per day, as he doesn't have enough power to Turn Undead efectively.
Thanks to the Cleric level, he can use arcane and divine spell scrolls.
Also, he doesn't have to raise a lot of ability scores, he would just need 11 Int to cast the Duskblade spells, 12 Wis to cast the cleric spells and he would have to boost Cha, Str and Con to be able to cast the sorcerer spells and fight melee.
At level 20, a Duskblade has an average of 93 HP without any Con modifier; this character gets 92 HP, that's very close.

3.1. Duskblade 3/Wizard 3/Cleric 1/Ordained Champion1/Abjurant Champion 5/Ordained Champion 2/Spellsword 5 (This is my favorite build of these 5 options, but I don't know if it's worth playing to make a good and competitive character)

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Similar to the previous build, but with Wizard spells.
He gets 5th level spells at the same level as a Duskblade and gets 6th level spells at level 20.
Thanks to the wizard level, he can boost his Knowledge skills more than the precious build to have a very good use of the Knowledge Devotion feat.
He can make his own scrolls and he can use arcane and divine scrolls.

Thanks to the Martial Arcanist class feature of the Abjurant Champion (from complete mage), all of thede builds can cast spells with a fairly good spellcaster level.

Well, these are my options, if you can't see the images or something like that, tell me and I'll fix it.

What do you think? Are these builds worth playing?

Sorry if I made any spelling errors.

Thanks for your attention!

[awaken_D_M_golem]

The basic Gish "target" over the years is +16BAB and 9s by level 21.
You get the extra attack in epic, and qualify for Epic Spells right away.

Epic Spells are broken from the get go, but can be reasonable.
The extra attack isn't mandatory, and isn't as good as proper spellcasting.

You've plenty of wiggle room.

[IserLuick]

Sure, It would be great to get epic spells right away, but I have no problem in qualifying for epic spells later in the epic levels .

[Nytemare3701]

http://dndtools.eu/feats/complete-warrior--61/arcane-strike--103/

Always a good thing to have around.

[Rags]

You may like the look of the Havoc Mage PrC from Miniatures Handbook (pg. 20)
Only problem I can see is that it takes a full round action to use battlecast.

[xzyx]

I like the most the 5th build. it seems workable, with the right feats (altough I feel ordained champion AND duskblade is a bit redundant, but I may be wrong)

However, I'd advise for some simpler build priorizing a single spellcasting class and full BAB wherever possible.

Also, if you'd like to change a bit this aspect of your char, you can go with a duskblade/wizard and get some "buffer" classes like war weaver, spellguard of silverymoon and abjurant champion. You'd be able to uber-buff your entire party at once, but your martial prowess will suffer and there are many caster levels lost.

Another nice option is Spellthief 1 or 2 and master spellthief feat, so you can steal spells (and buffs if you go to level 2) to replenish your own arcane energy.

And the Enlightened Fist PrC also has a channel spell ability (altough the class is sub-optimal, I can imagine a good monk or swordsage/sorcerer enlightened fist-abjurant champion with ascetic mage build working well... maybe with fist of the forest thrown in for extra goodies).

And martial arcanist is good but it isn't great. It's only good if you are loosing a lot of caster levels, but that isn't optimal, as you may know.

[IserLuick]

What I thought about the 5th build is that I could channel a spell as an Ordained Champion, another one as a Spellsword (it's a super natural ability + a spell-like ability, I don't see any problem in using the two of them on the same weapon) and, finally, use the Arcane Channeling of the Duskblade to smash 3 spells on the enemy with one hit plus the damage and magical enhancements of the sword.

I thought about taking the Mystic Theurge prestige class to advance in arcane and divine spells on the epic levels.

I also thought of replacing the Cleric levels for Archivist levels to have access to every spell in the game, but I wouldn't have the 2 extra feats granted by the Combat Feats class feature of the Ordained Champion, and the Smite class feature would be useless, because I wouldn't have any turn undead attempts, but the possibility to cherrypick any spell would make up for it, I guess.

What do you think?

[Rebel7284]

When in the game, check out Bloodstone weapon.  It's like spell storing, but only for vampiric touch and it auto-empowers it.

As for builds, I feel like you are trying to do too many things, so you need a fast casting progression class to allow you to catch up on the casting.
This requires pretty good int and charisma.

Bard 1/Cloistered Cleric 1/Duskblade 3/Ordained Champion 1/Spellsword 4/Sublime Chord 2/Abjurant Champion 5/Dragonslayer 1/Spellsword 1/

Feats:
1. Able Learner
H. Versatile Spellcaster
2. War Domain: Weapon Focus , Knowledge Devotion
3. Heighten Spell
6. Iron Will, Trade Domain for Dodge.
9. Combat Casting
12. Free
15. Free
18. Free

Note that you need to make sure that heighten spell + versatile spellcaster work to fulfill prerequisites.  RAW this works perfectly.

Edit: Some additional points.
- Declare Duskblade as your favorite class = no multiclass penalties.
- If you take another +1 BAB class at level 20, you will get the last attack.  I recommend Spellsword to get more uses of channel spell, but Warblade is wonderful too.

[IserLuick]

That build sounds awesome!

But... how can I get the skill prerrequisites for the Sublime Chord prestige class (specially the 13 ranks in Listen, 10 in Perform and 6 in Profession (astrologer))?

[Rebel7284]

That build sounds awesome!

But... how can I get the skill prerrequisites for the Sublime Chord prestige class (specially the 13 ranks in Listen, 10 in Perform and 6 in Profession (astrologer))?

That is why the feat Able Learner is there.  It saves you a lot of skill points. 

Remember this rule:

Regardless of whether a skill is purchased as a class skill or a cross-class skill, if it is a class skill for any of your classes, your maximum rank equals your total character level + 3.

[SorO_Lost]

Two things before I move onto suggestions.

1. Duskblade's Arcane Channeling only works with the Duskblade's Arcane Spellcasting.
Class Abilities are written that by default they refer to them selves and not bizarre multi-class abominations. You cannot channel any arcane spell through the Duskblades ability any more than you can channel the Wizard's Prepared Slots through the Cleric' Spontaneous Spellcasting (which the FAQ conveniently can be quoted on).

2. Dragonslayer 1 & Spellsword 1 are filler choices when you can't figure out what to do.
So if someone suggests them you know they fundamentally have a build with 18 levels and ran out of ideas.

As far as gish builds go there are several. A Bard/Crusader/Jade Phoenix Mage/Sublime Chord/Abjuration Champion/Moar JPM is by far the most powerful gishy build I can think of. And it has two sliding scales within it. Bard/Crusader adjusts your Bardic Music vs Maneuvers and AC/JPM adjusts your AC vs Offense. For instance, AC 3 / JPM 8 gives you Quicken Strike, so after using your most powerful Strike you can immediately follow up with almost any spell of your choice, but loses out on two levels of AC's advancement. And if you really want Spellsword's Channeling, that can be done in place of JPM (see disclaimer).

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Technically it plays off an ambiguous reading that as far as I know has no RAI example to clarify. And that is: if you had also gained a level in an arcane spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level. ... you must decide to which class to add each level. The singular syntax and choice at each level can be interpreted to mean JPM1's lack of spellcasting can be taken before Sublime and JPM2's Spellcasting advancement can be applied to Sublime. If it seems I'm a little dual sided here -- rawr intent says no on Duskblade, but read things this way over here -- it's because I'm a stickler for intent with a huge optimize streak.

Outside of Class Levels I highly suggest looking at Persisting some Spells. If you have access to Dragon Mag you can take Easy Metamagic(persist) on top of RotD's Practical Metamagic(persist) to drop the Slot Cost to +4. As Class Boosters brings up under Spell Augmentation, you can Persist Acid Sheath and Fire Shield to deal a ton of damage to your opponent each and every time they hit you with a melee attack. So some times a low AC is helpful.

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Perhaps you've heard of me?

And being able to Persist Spells such Bite of the Wearbear can be extremely helpful.